The annual events calendar in our industry changes slowly as events come and go, but for 40 years now, Contract magazine has kicked off the year with its Interiors Awards breakfast in New York City.
Held once again at the resplendent Cipriani 42nd Street, the stated purpose of the gathering was to honor Contract’s Designer of the Year, a new Design Legend and winners of awards in the competition’s 16 categories. An unspoken purpose of such events is the great fun of seeing and being seen and industry notables came from far and wide for those several purposes.
Contract Publisher, Karen Donaghy and Editor in Chief, Paul Makovsky hosted the 40th with aplomb, belying the fact that it was Mr. Makovsky’s first time and only Ms. Donaghy’s second. But any rookie jitters were nowhere to be seen and that fact is emblematic of the level of continuity necessary for an event to carry on for such an extended period. We extend our thanks to our hosts and our congratulations to all the honorees.
Designer of the Year
The 40th Designer of the Year Award went to Float Studio, whose principals Nina Etnier and Brad Sherman have grown their practice from a startup by serving startups. Sherman is self-described as “scrappy” and came to the partnership with a startup, budget conscious mentality. Etnier, on the other hand had an itch she was finding hard to scratch in her practice serving the high-end residential market. They had known each other at college but had gone their separate ways.
Wanting to be involved in the tech startup scene any way possible, designer Brad Sherman took a job manning the front desk at a cowork incubator space.
While there, the young designer noticed as companies were getting ready to leave the cowork location for their own offices they found the prospect of planning those new digs really intimidating. And as a designer, he was sure he had the solutions to their problems; the right situation merely had to present itself. It did so when he met the cofounder of Food52, a startup that was preparing to move to its first stand-alone office. Designing that space was the first project of what was to become Float Studio.
Nina Etnier was also interested in the high-energy startup world, but from the perspective of a busy designer with not-so-budget-oriented clients in the residential sector. When she saw an Instagram post by Sherman of an incubator he had designed, she got it touch. They began collaborating and two years later formed Float Studio.
It’s a great story – a startup design studio working mostly for startup companies. They believe the real key to their success and the standard by which they measure it is the degree to which they are able to connect with their clients and perceive the character of the client company or brand. Translating the client company’s culture into the physical setting of workspaces is the job of all interior designers. The degree to which Float Studio has been able to do so has earned them this great distinction, Contract magazine’s Designer of the Year.
When I asked Nina Etnier her reaction to hearing Float Studio had been selected “Designer of the Year.” She said, “I first heard about the award on my wedding day. It was the only ‘work update’ that Brad gave me over the weekend. We were both totally floored by it, to even be considered for something like this was totally unexpected and exciting for us. It felt like a very good sign for the next chapter of life.”
I followed up by asking how it felt to be the star of the awards breakfast. Her reply was, “I don’t think we really understood the gravity of the award until we were totally immersed in it. Even with all of the prep that went into it (interviews, photo shoots, etc) the scale and extent were impossible to picture ahead of time. It was surreal from start to finish. The level of exposure was so different than anything we have experienced so far, so it’s still hard to put into words how it actually felt. To me, the best part about the award ceremony was the general warmth and kindness of the community as a whole. I really loved that each category winner was given a chance to speak to their work directly. The ceremony really celebrated the designers as individuals. I felt such a strong sense of community and camaraderie, it was very special.”
A week after the event I mentioned to Ms. Etnier that the honor and notoriety around being Designer of the Year should bring significant rewards in terms of consideration for projects. She said, “We have definitely felt some buzz in the immediate aftermath. New project inquiries, interest from vendors, not to mention a nice spike in our instagram followers, which has to count for something, right?” Since Instagram was the vehicle that brought them together, I found it hard to refute the logic. And officeinsight is proud to help spread the word.
Design Legend
These days inspiring immigrant stories abound – with the moral of the story usually being how America is enriched by the creativity and contributions of those who come here from someplace else. Such is the case when we consider the story of Clive Wilkinson, Contract magazine’s 40th Design Legend, who was born in South Africa and studied architecture in London.
After working for the British post-modernist, Sir Terry Farrell, Wilkinson worked in the Frank Gehry office during the design of the famous, groundbreaking Chiat Day project in Venice, CA. Wilkinson established his eponymous practice in 1991. In 1998 his 120,000 square-foot project for TBWA\Chiat\Day that has become known as “Advertising City” cemented his reputation as a truly innovative thinker.
His design for the Barbarian Group features a table that winds through an entire floor, symbolizing the interconnectedness of all who work there. And his design for the Google headquarters in Mountain View, CA includes “glass tent” offices that can be picked up and moved and feature canvas-like ceilings and soft, sound absorbing sides. The word that comes to mind when thinking of his firm’s many award winning projects is “unexpected.” Browsing through his portfolio of work or walking though one of the spaces he’s designed, one is always struck by the unexpected, yet logical and thoroughly pleasing use of space to create a distinctive solution.
Subsequent out-of-the-box thinking about architecture and workplace design led to the firm’s design of a 10-story open atrium for the Macquarie Group a bank in Sydney with conference rooms and offices protruding into the open atrium like giant blocks.
The 40th edition of Contract’s Interiors Awards was highly successful and the winning individuals, firms and projects were all highly deserving. Events such as this and NeoCon and others with long histories make an outsized contribution to the culture that makes us happy to say we belong to the workplace design and furnishings community.
