
Breaking into the architecture and design community can seem like a daunting task when you are looking in from the outside. If you are someone just entering the field, the sheer number of design firms in New York and directions your career can go can seem overwhelming.
Anecdotes and stories from your classmates will certainly reveal one side of what it is like to work at a design firm, but nothing beats a little face-to-face interaction from the principals, design directors and senior designers of New York’s elite interior design firms to give a clearer picture of how each company runs and what qualities they are looking for in today’s design school graduates to design tomorrow’s projects.

For the last sixteen years, the Pratt Career Night has been an instrumental and annual event that offers their graduate and undergrad students access to the senior management at such firms as Gensler, HLW, HOK, IA Interior Architects, Mancini Duffy, Rockwell Group, Studios Architecture,Ted Moudis Associates,TPG Architecture, Unispace, Vocon andWilson Associates.

The event itself, which happened this year in the newly renovated Haworth showroom on Park Avenue in Manhattan is a project spearheaded by Pratt professor Jon Otis and his wife Diane Barnes, director of sales for the Haworth Collection.


The idea is that each student gets a five-minute face-to-face meeting with decision makers from design firms of their choice. Students show their portfolios, and design firms offer insight, guidance and design critique. The event is designed for meaningful interaction, and each firm was given a comfortable space within the showroom, which was recently re-designed by Patricia Urquiola and filled with her trademark design details containing soft corners and rich textures.
In her opening remarks for the evening, dean of the School of Design Anita Cooney noted, “It is our intention that Pratt will be with all of you throughout your careers in design, not just at the beginning.”


The event itself felt like a handing of the baton to a younger generation. Several of the design firm representatives interviewing students are themselves Pratt graduates.

“We have great professors at Pratt, and this career fair is helping us,” said Xinchun Hu, a Pratt student due to graduate this May. ”So many of the professors at Pratt act like mentors to us.” When asked which design firm an ideal fit for her taste and ability would be, she noted, “I usually take it one step at a time, but I think it would be really cool to work with Olafur Eliasson. His office in Berlin explores and experiments a lot. Their in-house kitchen does the same thing in feeding the design staff. They usually invite chefs from all over the world to come in and collaborate with them.”

Walking through the event and witnessing these speed dating types of interactions, where each student is interviewing the firm as much as the firm is interviewing the student, I noticed a level of empowerment or design confidence in students that I had not seen in previous Career Nights.
“I am currently working with FX Collaborative,” said Pratt Student Hiwen Shao. “Right now, I am open to working with smaller or medium sized firms; I am really looking forward to expanding my skills and knowledge.” For Ms. Shao, the environment makes the difference. “The showroom we are in right now is designed by one of my favorite designers, Patricia Urquiola. Her aesthetic is so minimal, simple and elegant. I really admire how she can balance so many colors throughout a space in a simple and clean way. I think that design really shows through in the details, rather than using fashionable materials or very bold colors.”

I could not help but take a few informal polls throughout the evening on what today’s graduating students felt was important to them about design. “Hospitality design is everywhere these days, and that is what I am interested in doing,” said Ms. Hu. Designing for user experience is a very big thing right now, as well as designing a space for an Instagrammable moment. I am interested in creating comfort, and I am also interested in residential design, really anything human-centric.”
Another soon-to-be grad, Elle Liu, is living the dream of many of her classmates and currently interning at Rockwell Group.
”Working there is very different from what I learned in school. I worked on three luxury hotel projects – one in Seattle, one in San Jose and one in Chengdu, China. Working on those projects was a lot of practical work. When we are in school, we do projects where we never think about budget. Anything is possible. But when you deal with a client, you have to design something beautiful but within a super tight budget. So far, I have assembled the material palette, worked on CAD drawings and figured out floor plans for those three projects.”

Whether these students are aware of it or not, much of the actual work in a design project comes down to predicting what the future will be like. How people will live, eat and play, but also how they will learn, work, heal and discover new experiences that enrich their lives. Each one of these students’ careers may be just beginning, but their education in design will be for a lifetime; where their design career will go can be anyone’s guess.
“I really want to work in New York, but I am not sure if I can afford a Visa,” said Ms. Shao. “There is a chance I will go back to Asia, probably Hong Kong. I did my internship there before Pratt. Hong Kong is more focused on architecture. Interior design firms are not very developed over there; they are usually affiliated with construction companies and everything is commodified. There are many opportunities across Asia right now, so it may be good to go back after I gain more experience here. The majority of people in my class are Chinese, and many of them are looking to gain experience here and then go back to China to work.”

It will indeed be interesting to see where today’s design students end up in the coming years. The New York design industry is still suffering from a lack of qualified people due to the recession ten years ago. We continue to need all the people we can get. However, if work experience is what today’s design students are seeking, they may be in for a surprise if they return to Asia with a skill set that may not apply to how projects are designed and fabricated over there.
As Pratt Career Night continues to prove each year, design is always local. It’s great to see this school taking care of their own in such a personal way.