Winners will be announced at the trade show in which the product is entered. The award winner will receive a certificate to display throughout that show and at other Emerald shows where the product will be featured within the calendar year.
At the end of the year (December 19, 2019), a press release will be issued announcing the overall winners from among all seven shows.
Meet the Winners
ASID is proud to recognize companies who are putting human health and wellness and a concern for the environment at the forefront of their innovative designs. Join us in honoring the winners of the ASID DESIGN IMPACT Awards at all 2019 Emerald design-related shows.
Eligibility Criteria
Product must currently be available in the marketplace and must be less than two years old.
Product must be on display in the exhibitor’s booth during the show for which the award was given.
Product must align to the awards intent and judging criteriaused in determining award winners.
Products may only be entered in one of the above shows even if featured at multiple shows. The entrant may choose which show to enter the product.
Rules and Regulations
The product entry must be submitted in accordance with the timeline and deadlines set for that particular show. No extensions will be provided.
A product is not considered entered until a full application is submitted and payment has been accepted by ASID.
There is no limit to the number of products a company may enter into the competition, however, you may only enter a product once per calendar year at one of the above listed shows.
At the end of the calendar year, there will be a series of Best in Show winners declared from all products entered within the calendar year.
Entries will be judged by a panel of design luminaries, including interior design editors, according to the judging criteria.
Awards will be judged in consideration of a category but will not be awarded by category.
Products will be awarded based on their final score and there will be no limit to the number of awards given at each show.
The cost per product entry is$200.
Award winners will be announced on the first day of each tradeshow. E-mails with confirmation of the award will be sent to both the Company Applicant and Onsite Contact no later than noon on the same day.
All award winners will receive an awards certificate for public display in their booth on the first day of the show (certificates will be hand-delivered to the booth).
Award winners are encouraged to issue their own press release about their award; a template press release will be included in the e-mail announcing the award.
Award winners may display their winning certificate at other Emerald trade shows throughout the year. The product that won the award must be present in the booth when the certificate is displayed.
Duplicate award certificates for display at future shows or in company showrooms can be provided for an additional fee of $25plus the full shipping/handling cost.
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Join the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) for a live webinar that will provide insight on the current business conditions for the interior design industry as determined by the ASID Interior Design Billings Index 2nd Quarter 2019 report. The IDBI is produced by ASID Research and Knowledge Management in partnership with Jack Kleinhenz, Ph.D., and Russ Smith, Ph.D., both of Kleinhenz &… More
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07/30/2019By American Society of Interior Designers (ASID)
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As back-to-school season approaches, so do opportunities for design students to engage in individual career development; get hands-on experience; and learn from their peers, mentors and future employers.
SCALEX, a series of daylong events tailored to undergraduate design students, has gone live for 2019. Held in October at schools across the nation, SCALEX offers students and educators alike the chance to:
Hear from design experts on relevant topics (Photo Courtesy ASID)
Participate in innovative discussions with top panels
Explore real-life scenarios to better prepare undergrads for life as a professional designer
After attending, students are equipped with resources they can take with them throughout their professional career, and educators are able to augment and expand their curricula.
Developed as a local version of SCALE: The ASID National Student Summit, SCALEX is a full day event, designed to bring the same innovation and immersion directly to local communities.
(Photo Courtesy ASID: At the ASID National Student Summit, held in New York from March 1-3, ASID named the winners of the 2019 ASID Student Portfolio Competition. Five winners and seven finalists were announced. Front row left to right: Jieru Lin, Jessica Ma, Seyedehnastaran Hashemi, Jumana Almukhtar, Ara Kim, Crystal Martin, Yi-En Lee. Back row left to right: Jianfeng Ni, Haopeng Lin, Sloan Aulgur, Kelsey Muir, Xuan Dang.)
This is an annual competition that generates the best collection of student design projects in the nation. The competition selects winners and finalists based on:
Conceptual thought
Content and quality of submitted work
The student’s ability to articulate their process
Winners receive a scholarship from Benjamin Moore and national recognition. The jury of esteemed judges selected five winners and seven finalists.
An exceptional portfolio is key to business, allowing you to pique the interest of prospective clients or submit work to a publication for consideration. For some disciplines, this practice is straightforward: Fine artists, for instance, can typically digitize and circulate their images for portfolios with ease, as they often own the rights to their work. But interior designers and architects, who work on commissions, usually need to get their client’s approval to share images of those projects. That’s not always the easiest thing to do, especially if the project is a private residence.
Sometimes—in fact, oftentimes—you’ll end up working with clients who refuse to have their space photographed because they want to maintain their privacy. In those cases, it’s essential to arm yourself with some techniques to handle such situations, since, as New York–based designer and illustrator Jason Grimesnotes, “You’re only as good as a photograph of your last project, especially at the Instagram-sharing pace the world has adopted.”
Here are several strategies to keep in mind when trying to convince clients to have their space photographed.
Put photography in your contract from the start.
The best way to work around a no-photography situation is to avoid it completely. Lawyer Alex Ross, a partner at Ross & Katz, PLLC,who works closely with designers, highly recommends including a clause about photographing a space—both before and after the project—in your standard contract. “This way we’re able to manage expectations from the beginning, so the client knows that photography is important,” he says. Work closely with an attorney to hammer out the details—you want to be sure you’re getting the rights you need.
Negotiate. Suggest stricter terms, such as ensuring anonymity, or offer a first right of refusal.
Even if you have a clause about photography in your contract, the client may strike it out before signing. That’s the time for negotiation. If your original wording didn’t mention anonymity, it’s a great place to start. Offer your client complete privacy, ensuring that no identifying details about the home or its owners will be shared with publications, on your website, or on social channels. Work on finding a middle ground with your client that still allows you to add photographs of your project to your portfolio.
It sounds obvious, but sometimes long discussions can change your client’s mind. Again, having a lawyer in this situation would be advantageous, as he or she could help negotiate specific rights.
Ask to photograph details only.
Say that your client is standing his or her ground during negotiations. The next tactic to try is to give in, just a tiny bit. “Aside from slowly convincing the client over the course of the project, the best solution I’ve found is to focus on the details,” says Grimes. “All of my work is super-detailed and hyper-custom, so detail photos go a long way. These cropped photos may not make a publication, but they can at least be used in my portfolio.”
Go to court.
Or at least threaten to. “I haven’t any seen any designers who actually go to court about this issue, but we’ve certainly threatened it,” says Ross. Going to court is probably more expensive than it’s worth (and will also cost you a client relationship), so it’s not always advisable to do so, but the option is there.
Work with brokers if the property goes up for sale.
If you’ve lost out on negotiations and the client simply won’t budge—and you decide not to take the matter to court—it doesn’t mean all hope is lost. If the client decides to sell the home, there’s a chance the space will be photographed to woo prospective buyers. In some instances, you can negotiate a deal with the broker to retroactively add those images to your portfolio.
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Puro Lodz in Poland was far from an easy commission for Superfutures founder Andy Martin and ASW Architekci partners Michal Ankiersztajn, Dariusz Stankiewicz, and Jaroslaw Wronski. It had taken Martin several years to persuade the owner of Puro Hotels to let him craft the 75,000-square-foot interior of the brand’s sixth property. “We had to convince him that we could offer something different,” Martin begins.
The snack bar’s communal table is custom. Photography by Anna Stathaki.
Once they finally got the gig, the team found itself struggling with all sorts of spatial challenges in what Martin calls an “awkward site.” Puro Lodz had a few differences of its own to offer. It stands between the neo-baroque Poznanski Palace from 1903 and a renovated late 19th-century red-brick factory now a mixed-use complex. But the hotel is also a ground-up, five-story construction, so it’s both metaphorically and spatially lodged between the city’s industrial past and its future as a hip urban playground.
That meant the building took the alinear form of a long, narrow rectangle, which, Martin says, “became one of the project’s unique qualities.” But, “It was extremely challenging from a design perspective. The common areas could be rearranged, but we were basically stuck with the footprint.” It wasn’t what he’d expected, but Superfutures made it work.
Glass pendant fixtures and ‘60’s-inspired carpet, all custom, join Verner Panton seating in the cinema bar at Poland’s Puro Rodz hotel by ASW Architekci and Superfutures. Photography by Anna Stathaki.
Martin has been running a London firm called AMA for two decades. He launched Superfutures when companies began submitting requests for proposals that required him to oversee the art direction of projects, and, as he puts it, “employing the necessary creatives.”
And Puro Lodz is loaded with the work of creatives. Superfutures utilized the local artistic resources to design the hotel. Poland’s third largest city, it boasts several excellent art museums, the Herbst Palace Museum and Muzeum Sztuki among them, plus the renowned National Film School in Lodz, and the interiors reflect that heritage. The firm worked with Puro Hotels art advisor, Zuzanna Zakaryan, who consults on all properties, to help select the modern art. She sought out the best students and graduates from the photography department of the film school as well as area craftspeople and illustrators. “Our collection is based on a young generation of emerging artists that not only fit with the spirit of the interiors and the city but are also a good investment,” she says.
A custom concrete screen separates the lobby from the lounge. Photography by Anna Stathaki.
The seven suites feature original wall hangings by hometown weaving studio Tartaruga. Some of the 130 guest rooms feature original illustrations inspired by Lodz’s famous interwar pioneers of avant-garde art, Katarzyna Kobro and Wladyslaw Strzeminski. The lobby staircase descends alongside a cinematic mural from local illustrators Ilcat and Maciej Polak. And contemporary painting and photography, as well as vintage film posters, populate the remainder of the project.
That includes its crowning glory, Cinema Paradiso, an in-house movie theater that pays homage to Lodz’s filmmaking culture. “We pushed to get a cinema into the scheme somewhere,” Martin says. “We tried the underground garage, an external one in the forecourt, but we finally decided it would get more use inside the hotel.” The second-floor space can also function as a meeting room, with the adjoining bar area great for break-out sessions. (There’s an official conference room on the same floor.) “Hotel guests often sit in their rooms to watch TV,” the architect continues, “so the cinema is an attempt at providing social activity.”
Vintage movie posters hang in the conference room. Photography by Anna Stathaki.
Martin, who worked on the furniture selection closely with the owner, settled on a European-centric “dusting of new creative designs,” he says, to combine with his custom pieces throughout, including the chromatic 1960s-inspired carpet in the cinema and conference room. Other pieces are what he calls “visual classics” with an eye toward comfort, such as the Verner Panton bar chairs and stools upholstered in plush turquoise or blush velvet. That palette extends to some walls, coated in saturated salmon, indigo, or teal paint. Guest rooms, however, are more restrained, with furnishings by the likes of Hans Wegner and millwork in pale tones; white ceramic tile lines guest bathrooms. And reception, with its desk that morphs into a stair, is outfitted almost entirely in gray concrete.
While the hotel may honor classic elements of Polish life, it also features two restaurant concepts of today: a healthy snack bar serving smoothies and wholesome breakfasts at a long communal table and an organic bistro with a Thai vibe. There’s also a state-of-the-art spa with a view of Poznanski Palace that Martin says shouldn’t be missed. In all, it’s an interior born from substantial artistic tension and original ideas. The project’s wealth of creative talent, Martin says, “adds another layer and complexity to the experience. It put us off balance a bit—and the guests benefit.”
Keep scrolling to view more images of the project >
Cast-in-place concrete forms flooring in reception and treads on the stair, which leads up to the cinema and conference room. Photography by Anna Stathaki.The coffered ceiling is also cast-in-place concrete. Photography by Anna Stathaki.The bar’s plaster ceiling morphs into light fixtures. Photography by Anna Stathaki.The cinema’s 26 seats were inspired by the Eames lounge chair. Photography by Anna Stathaki.Local illustrators Ilcat and Maciej Polak spray-painted the lobby’s site-specific mural. Photography by Anna Stathaki.ArrmetLab designed the stools and chairs in the bistro. Photography by Anna Stathaki.The suite’s lounge chair is also by Wegner. Photography by Anna Stathaki.A Hans Wegner chair pulls up to a suite’s custom desk. Photography by Anna Stathaki.Leather straps secure a guest room’s cushioned headboard. Photography by Anna Stathaki.Bathroom tile is ceramic. Photography by Anna Stathaki.The spa’s sauna is clad in custom wooden planks. Photography by Anna Stathaki.
Project Team: Martyna Antczak-Galant; Michal Karykowski; Hanna Sawicka; Maria Swarowska:ASW Architekci. Nadia Sousa; Ben Webb; Mitch James; Kathrine H. Børresen; Adrian Jönsson: Superfutures. Atrium: Lighting Consultant. Bud-Ekspert: Structural Engineer. Elsa Projekt: Electrical Engineer. Wiso: Plumbing Engineer. Hotel Inwest Ireneusz Dudek: General Contractor.
Cala Beach Club at Hotel Cala di Volpe in Porto Cervo on Sardinia. Photography courtesy of Matteo Thun & Partners.
A holistic approach to nature and wellness drives Matteo Thun’s built projects. The award-winning Italian architect and Interior DesignHall of Fame member co-founded the iconic Italian design and architecture collective the Memphis Group with Ettore Sottsass in 1981, before striking out on his own, forming Matteo Thun & Partners in 2001. Thun’s happiest designing something new, he admits, and his firm’s creative eye, honed out of a headquarters in Milan and an office in Shanghai, is behind a long list of high-profile hospitality and healthcare projects spanning the globe.
Most recently, summer saw the reassembly of Thun’s temporary beach structure, Cala Beach Club on the breathtaking Emerald Coast of the Italian island of Sardinia. Situated at Hotel Cala di Volpe in Costa Smeralda, a playground for the rich and, at times, famous—many of them yachting enthusiasts—Cala Beach Club is an environmentally sensitive structure only accessible by foot or boat. In summer it hums with private parties, with clientele seduced by the stunning natural landscape. Interior Design sat down with Thun to hear more about the Cala Beach Club, what toy kicked off his imagination at a young age, and which project reachable solely by cable car he considers a career turning point.
Interior Design: What was your overall design goal for Cala Beach Club?
Matteo Thun: Cala di Volpe is a beautiful beach in Sardinia. We wanted to create a shady oasis just between the woods and the sea. Restaurant, bar, and treatment rooms have been designed to melt within the landscape, to respect the charm of this special place.
ID: What was particularly challenging about this project?
MT: This property is reachable only by boat or on a path through nature. Since it serves only for the season, we designed a removable structure that is easily to assemble and dismantle.
Cala Beach Club at Hotel Cala di Volpe in Porto Cervo on Sardinia. Photography courtesy of Matteo Thun & Partners.
ID: What materials did you use and why?
MT: The structure unites with the beach vegetation, terraces value the inclination of the land, and views are open to the sea. We only used natural materials that integrate with the surroundings, such as chestnut wood and bamboo. All colors are natural and warm.
ID: What else have you completed recently?
MT: We like to bring nature inside and believe in concepts that emphasize an overall healthy lifestyle as a main approach. Healthy architecture and interior design guarantees physical and mental well being, allowing a relationship between humans and the environment. In Obbürgen, Switzerland, the Waldhotel at Bürgenstock Hotels & Resort, which opened at the end of last year, is a space for wellness and medical services. It’s made from local stone and wood, and nature will take over in a few years so that the building will melt with the mountain. As with most of our projects, we also designed the entire interior.
Another recent project is the new headquarters for Davines, an Italian beauty company dedicated to sustainability and based in Parma, Italy. Here, we grouped traditional rural shapes and innovative volumes around a greenhouse that serves as a restaurant for the employees. Maximum architectural transparency with a minimum amount of masonry elements provides every working station with a view of the green areas.
The Waldhotel at Bürgenstock Hotels & Resort in Obbürgen, Switzerland by Matteo Thun & Partners. Photography by Andrea Garuti, courtesy of Matteo Thun & Partners.
ID: What’s upcoming for you?
MT: The Evangelisches Waldkrankenhaus Spandau in Berlin at the largest university orthopedic center in Europe. Waldkrankenhaus means ‘hospital in the forest’ in German, and the new hospital building and rehab building connected to it will transform the hospital campus into a health center with a hotel character. This project represents our idea of a healing environment, an architectural and organizational structure that helps the patient and his relatives endure stressful situations caused by illness, operations, treatments, and sometimes pain.
Another hospitality project, a health bathing spa with medical treatments and maximum comfort, is underway in Bavaria, at Tegernsee, a resort town on the banks of Germany’s Tegernsee Lake. Nature is also the point of departure here and was key to the project. The landscape design integrates the existing flora and references the natural presence of water, allowing a direct communication with nature without interfering with the privacy of the patients.
The Evangelisches Waldkrankenhaus Spandau in Berlin by Matteo Thun & Partners. Photography courtesy of Matteo Thun & Partners.
ID: Is there a project in your history that you feel was particularly significant to your career?
MT: I designed the Vigilius Mountain Resort in South Tirol more than 15 years ago. It was one of the first design hotels, made from local larch wood and reachable only by cable car. The owner and I shared the same vision: to create a hotel that fuses with its surroundings, a place where you can breathe and relax instantly. Now, after all these years, the wood has a beautiful patina and the hotel a constant influx of international clientele.
ID: What are you reading?
MT: I very much like to read books in parallel: such as German philosopher Martin Heidegger with a novel or short story by Italian journalist and writer Italo Calvino.
The Vigilius Mountain Resort by Matteo Thun & Partners. Photography by Serge Brison, courtesy of Matteo Thun & Partners.
ID: How do you think your childhood influenced your design thinking?
MT: My parents took me regularly to the Venice Biennale, so I became familiar with art and architecture at quite a young age. I grew up in nature, in the mountains near Bolzano, Italy, where my mother worked with pottery. She gave me clay to play with—so I had to use my imagination to have fun with it. I was always very close to material and materiality.
ID: How do think the Italian design culture influences your overall approach?
MT: In Italy, architecture is approached holistically. Let me quote Italian architect and writer Ernesto Rogers: ‘From spoon to city.’ This means working on a chair, on a lighting product, and on a house at the same time. We’ve worked like this in my office since the beginning, and the different teams of architects, interior designers, and product designers perform across disciplines.
Another big strength is Italian craftsmanship. At Salone del Mobile 2019, we launched a wood chair collection produced by F.lli Levaggi, a small manufacturer in Liguria, Italy, and work regularly with the glassblowers from Murano, such as Venini, Barovier & Toso, and Seguso. We very much believe in ‘Made in Italy.’
The Vigilius Mountain Resort by Matteo Thun & Partners. Photography by Vigilius Mountain Resort, courtesy of Matteo Thun & Partners.
ID: Is there a person in the industry that you particularly admire?
MT: Ettore Sottsass, chief designer of Olivetti. I first worked for him as an assistant, then we formed Sottsass Associati and in 1981 we co-founded Italian design and architecture collective Memphis Group. Memphis had an important formative influence on my career, and provided a platform to experiment with the challenges of constant innovation. Ettore designed the first Italian computer—in the late 1950s.
Keep scrolling for more images of projects by Matteo Thun >
The Vigilius Mountain Resort by Matteo Thun & Partners. Photography by Florian Andergassen, courtesy of Matteo Thun & Partners.The Waldhotel at Bürgenstock Hotels & Resort in Obbürgen, Switzerland by Matteo Thun & Partners. Photography by Andrea Garuti, courtesy of Matteo Thun & Partners.The alpine suite at the Waldhotel at Bürgenstock Hotels & Resort in Obbürgen, Switzerland by Matteo Thun & Partners. Photography by Waldhotel, courtesy of Matteo Thun & Partners.The pool at the Waldhotel at Bürgenstock Hotels & Resort in Obbürgen, Switzerland by Matteo Thun & Partners. Photography by Waldhotel, courtesy of Matteo Thun & PartnersThe Davines headquarters in Parma, Italy by Matteo Thun & Partners. Photography by Andrea Garuti, courtesy of Matteo Thun & Partners.The Nudes seating collection by Matteo Thun, launched at Salone del Mobile 2019. Photography by Marco Bertolini, courtesy of Matteo Thun & Partners.
Researchers from Universität Stuttgart in Germany look to a sea creature and advanced digital timber-fabrication methods to construct an event pavilion called Buga Wood Pavilion for a horticultural show.
A group of 18 researchers and craftsmen led by Universität Stuttgart professors Jan Knippers, a structural engineer, and Achim Menges, an architect contributed to the project. “A biomimetic approach to architecture enables interdisciplinary thinking,” says Menges.
Buga Wood Pavilion took 13 months to develop, and 17,000 robotically milled finger joints and 2 million lines of custom robotic code to build.
Photography courtesy of Universität Stuttgart.
To create the Buga Wood Pavilion for a horticultural show in nearby Heilbronn, Germany, researchers at Universität Stuttgart’s Institute for Computational Design and Construction and its Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design developed a robotic-manufacturing platform to CNC-cut geometric panels and form a segmented timber shell.
Photography courtesy of Universität Stuttgart.
Composed of spruce laminate, a rubber waterproofing layer, and a larch plywood exterior, the individual segments were fabricated at Müllerblaustein Holzbauwerke, a local workshop.
Photography courtesy of Universität Stuttgart.
Working on boom lifts, craftsmen assembled the structure on-site over 10 days.
Photography courtesy of Universität Stuttgart.
The 376 segments were joined via steel bolts.
Photography courtesy of Universität Stuttgart.
The pavilion’s form is based on the exoskeleton of the sea urchin.
Photography by Roland Halbe.
Buga’s form echoes the surrounding landscape of Sommerinsel, one of the 15 sites that the biennial Bundesgartenschau takes place this year.
Photography by Roland Halbe.
The combination of spruce, rubber, and larch plywood make the installation acoustically sound.
Photography by Roland Halbe.
Fully assembled, the pavilion spans 104 feet and reaches 23 high.
Photography by Roland Halbe.
It is hosting concerts, lectures, and workshops through October 6, when it will be disassembled for future use.
Custom wallpaper defines the second floor’s main dining room, with gray chairs by Saba and peach chairs by Kristalia. Photography by Mikhail Loskutov.
Millennials aren’t just about avocado toast, although the distinctive green, often mixed with peach, is a clear menu favorite around the world. The Y—a new 6,000-square-foot eatery in Moscow featuring a first floor with two open kitchens and 200 seats divided between a casual dining area and coffee shop and formal areas up above—is a textbook example of that generation’s preferred flavor.
“We took inspiration from how the ‘70s vibe touched on this generation,” a look that’s prevalent throughout the city’s up-and-coming Hamovniki neighborhood, says designer Alina Pimkina of New York City-based Asthetíque Group, who headed up the project with partner Julien Albertini.
The floors of the large private dining room are a checkerboard of white and brown marble and oak; chairs are by ABC and the tables and velvet-covered banquettes are custom. Photography by Mikhail Loskutov.
The pair also name-checked film director Wes Anderson as a muse; his love of ornament and obsessive symmetry clearly inspired the brass birdcage-like lighting above neat rows of custom chairs in the first-floor dining area. “We pay extreme attention to detail,” says Albertini, “and that makes the place feel very unique, modern, and luxurious.” Rather like the restaurant’s clientele itself.
Keep scrolling for more images from this project >
In the first-floor dining area, custom brass sconces hang over custom oak tables; the gray-teal chairs are by Poiat. Photography by Mikhail Loskutov.A white marble countertop with a brass sheet metal face defines the open kitchen’s bar, featuring a brass and fluted glass overhang. Photography by Mikhail Loskutov. Near the entrance, a cafe layers a custom marble-topped oak counter with a column covered in Midas’s liquid brass and chairs by &tradition. Photography by Mikhail Loskutov.Bahia chairs gather in the small private dining room on the second floor, which also features custom lighting, tables, and curtains. Photography by Mikhail Loskutov.The men’s bathroom on the second floor features a perforated metal and concrete cabinet with custom bronze mirrors and Dornbracht faucets. Photography by Mikhail Loskutov. The walls of the women’s bathroom on the first floor are oak or stainless steel, the latter with a gradated polish from opaque to mirror. Photography by Mikhail Loskutov.
When the Apollo 11 came to rest in the lunar Sea of Tranquility on July 20th, 1969 and began transmitting back to Earth grainy black-and-white images of a spider-legged ship, pale figures within shiny helmets, and, a bit later, magisterial photographs of Earth itself against the black void of space, the human race’s conception of itself changed forever. The voyage inspired political realignments and countless scientific breakthroughs; it also inspired the look and feel of a number of cultural masterpieces, from Brian Eno’s 1983 ambient classic Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks to Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1971 stark sci-fi epic Solaris.
Architecture and design took that giant leap for mankind along with Neil Armstrong. In celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the moon landing, we spoke to innovators in the industry about their own lunar inspirations.
As a child, the textile designer Suzanne Tick watched the landing from her home in Bloomington, Illinois. “What was riveting to me was the sound of someone on the moon and his buoyancy,” Tick says. “I had this realization that a person can be on the moon while I’m sitting at home and he could also be floating!” Since then, the moon has been an important force in her life. “I’ve lived by the MoMA Moon Charts and they have played a large part in my consciousness. A poignant time in my life was 2009, 2010, and 2011 which coincided with the last three years of my father’s life, my marriage, and my son living with me. For this reason, I wove a triptych of each of these years and sewed them together as a reminder of that shift in my life.” This design became Perilune, a printed polyurethane which was introduced through Luum.
Long Dock Park in Beacon, New York by Gary R. Hilderbrand. Photography by James Ewing.
Gary R. Hilderbrand, FASLA FAAR; principal, Reed Hilderbrand; Peter Louis Hornbeck Professor in Practice, Harvard Graduate School of Design
“Because my Aunt and grandmother had a large color TV, anything momentous like this we watched in their living room,” says Gary Hilderbrand. “All gathered ‘round for the moon landing. It’s singed on my brain.” The landscape architect would go on to transform a brownfield in Beacon, New York, into a waterfront parkland with site-specific work by artist George Trakas and two buildings by ARO. “Apollo amplified my instincts about knowing our place in the world and a sense that we somehow had technological knowledge to improve it,” he says. “Seeing these missions orbiting around the other side of the moon, and then exploring its surface, gave me hope that we could right our own environmental mess and craft a smarter, saner landscape. That way of seeing the Earth descended directly from the Apollo 8 ‘earthrise’ photograph. Who would not be affected by that image?!”
SiriusXM’s New York Headquarters and Broadcast Center by Michael Kostow. Photography by Adrian Wilson.
Satellite radio wouldn’t exist without the technological breakthroughs of the Apollo mission, so it made perfect sense to have a space fan design the headquarters for one of its largest players, SiriusXM. “I watched the moon landing as a youngster and even had early aspirations of becoming an astronaut,” says Michael Kostow. “I later wanted to design space vehicles for NASA, would build and fly multi-stage model rockets, and even as an architecture graduate student had an early morning ‘party’ to drink Tang and watch the first launch of the space station with my classmates.” The compact efficiency of the capsules influenced his plan for the satellite broadcasting company: “We wanted to invoke simplicity and timelessness,” he says, “and allow the empty space to be an active player in setting the mood.” Mission accomplished.
Aerial and Half-Moon by Kelly Harris Smith for Skyline Design. Photography courtesy of Skyline Design.
Kelly Harris Smith, designer and creative director, Kelly Harris Smith
“I’ve never been on a rocket ship,” says designer Kelly Harris Smith, “but I have flown on an airplane and to this day I always request a window seat so I can peek out over the landscape.” The designer was born after the moon landing but carries the legacy of an aerial point of view into a collection for Chicago’s Skyline Design of glass panels with systems of micro-patterns within shapes and gradations of color over larger repeats. “It’s rooted in looking at the familiar in a new way,” she says, “which I have to imagine is what all astronauts experience looking back at Earth.”
Draper, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Photography by Mark Flannery.
“Watching the moon landing, even at such a young age, I was awed by the realization that anything is possible,” says Elizabeth Lowrey—even growing up to design a new home for Draper, a not-for-profit engineering firm that created software for Apollo 11. “I remember, as we stepped into Draper’s lobby, the first thing we saw was a space shuttle model. Even more thrilling was the opportunity to meet Margaret Hamilton, the pioneering software engineer who had made the moon landing possible!” A glass and steel structure forms the roof of the Draper atrium, which is rung with seven floors of offices and laboratories connected by blue glass vertical and horizontal stairways, green walls, and “the Cloud,” a polished steel polyhedron that is truly out of this world.
On the Water/Palisade Bay, New York City. Photography courtesy of ARO.
“I was seven, I remember watching the feed of the moonwalk,” says ARO co-founder Adam Yarinksy. “And if you were a kid that was into building models, you had the plastic model kit that was black and white with USA in red on the side. I built a model of the Saturn V and the lunar and command and service modules. The purposefulness of the vehicle had a kind of directness when you compare it to technology today. The control panels were just rows and rows of switches that all looked the same. There was a kind of Dieter Rams quality to it.” But it was politics, not aesthetics, that really inspired Yarinsky’s work with ARO, including this vision of the upper harbor of New York and New Jersey which proposes archipelago and wetlands to mitigate rising sea levels and storm surges. “The finite nature of the planet we’re on reinforces the notion that architecture is part of this web of relationships,” he says. “The best architecture tries to modify and transform, but it’s not an autonomous thing. It’s linked. That sense of connection is the legacy.”
When the Apollo 11 came to rest in the lunar Sea of Tranquility on July 20th, 1969 and began transmitting back to Earth grainy black-and-white images of a spider-legged ship, pale figures within shiny helmets, and, a bit later, magisterial photographs of Earth itself against the black void of space, the human race’s conception of itself changed forever. The voyage inspired political realignments and countless scientific breakthroughs; it also inspired the look and feel of a number of cultural masterpieces, from Brian Eno’s 1983 ambient classic Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks to Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1971 stark sci-fi epic Solaris.
Architecture and design took that giant leap for mankind along with Neil Armstrong. In celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the moon landing, we spoke to innovators in the industry about their own lunar inspirations.
As a child, the textile designer Suzanne Tick watched the landing from her home in Bloomington, Illinois. “What was riveting to me was the sound of someone on the moon and his buoyancy,” Tick says. “I had this realization that a person can be on the moon while I’m sitting at home and he could also be floating!” Since then, the moon has been an important force in her life. “I’ve lived by the MoMA Moon Charts and they have played a large part in my consciousness. A poignant time in my life was 2009, 2010, and 2011 which coincided with the last three years of my father’s life, my marriage, and my son living with me. For this reason, I wove a triptych of each of these years and sewed them together as a reminder of that shift in my life.” This design became Perilune, a printed polyurethane which was introduced through Luum.
Long Dock Park in Beacon, New York by Gary R. Hilderbrand. Photography by James Ewing.
Gary R. Hilderbrand, FASLA FAAR; principal, Reed Hilderbrand; Peter Louis Hornbeck Professor in Practice, Harvard Graduate School of Design
“Because my Aunt and grandmother had a large color TV, anything momentous like this we watched in their living room,” says Gary Hilderbrand. “All gathered ‘round for the moon landing. It’s singed on my brain.” The landscape architect would go on to transform a brownfield in Beacon, New York, into a waterfront parkland with site-specific work by artist George Trakas and two buildings by ARO. “Apollo amplified my instincts about knowing our place in the world and a sense that we somehow had technological knowledge to improve it,” he says. “Seeing these missions orbiting around the other side of the moon, and then exploring its surface, gave me hope that we could right our own environmental mess and craft a smarter, saner landscape. That way of seeing the Earth descended directly from the Apollo 8 ‘earthrise’ photograph. Who would not be affected by that image?!”
SiriusXM’s New York Headquarters and Broadcast Center by Michael Kostow. Photography by Adrian Wilson.
Satellite radio wouldn’t exist without the technological breakthroughs of the Apollo mission, so it made perfect sense to have a space fan design the headquarters for one of its largest players, SiriusXM. “I watched the moon landing as a youngster and even had early aspirations of becoming an astronaut,” says Michael Kostow. “I later wanted to design space vehicles for NASA, would build and fly multi-stage model rockets, and even as an architecture graduate student had an early morning ‘party’ to drink Tang and watch the first launch of the space station with my classmates.” The compact efficiency of the capsules influenced his plan for the satellite broadcasting company: “We wanted to invoke simplicity and timelessness,” he says, “and allow the empty space to be an active player in setting the mood.” Mission accomplished.
Aerial and Half-Moon by Kelly Harris Smith for Skyline Design. Photography courtesy of Skyline Design.
Kelly Harris Smith, designer and creative director, Kelly Harris Smith
“I’ve never been on a rocket ship,” says designer Kelly Harris Smith, “but I have flown on an airplane and to this day I always request a window seat so I can peek out over the landscape.” The designer was born after the moon landing but carries the legacy of an aerial point of view into a collection for Chicago’s Skyline Design of glass panels with systems of micro-patterns within shapes and gradations of color over larger repeats. “It’s rooted in looking at the familiar in a new way,” she says, “which I have to imagine is what all astronauts experience looking back at Earth.”
Draper, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Photography by Mark Flannery.
“Watching the moon landing, even at such a young age, I was awed by the realization that anything is possible,” says Elizabeth Lowrey—even growing up to design a new home for Draper, a not-for-profit engineering firm that created software for Apollo 11. “I remember, as we stepped into Draper’s lobby, the first thing we saw was a space shuttle model. Even more thrilling was the opportunity to meet Margaret Hamilton, the pioneering software engineer who had made the moon landing possible!” A glass and steel structure forms the roof of the Draper atrium, which is rung with seven floors of offices and laboratories connected by blue glass vertical and horizontal stairways, green walls, and “the Cloud,” a polished steel polyhedron that is truly out of this world.
On the Water/Palisade Bay, New York City. Photography courtesy of ARO.
“I was seven, I remember watching the feed of the moonwalk,” says ARO co-founder Adam Yarinksy. “And if you were a kid that was into building models, you had the plastic model kit that was black and white with USA in red on the side. I built a model of the Saturn V and the lunar and command and service modules. The purposefulness of the vehicle had a kind of directness when you compare it to technology today. The control panels were just rows and rows of switches that all looked the same. There was a kind of Dieter Rams quality to it.” But it was politics, not aesthetics, that really inspired Yarinsky’s work with ARO, including this vision of the upper harbor of New York and New Jersey which proposes archipelago and wetlands to mitigate rising sea levels and storm surges. “The finite nature of the planet we’re on reinforces the notion that architecture is part of this web of relationships,” he says. “The best architecture tries to modify and transform, but it’s not an autonomous thing. It’s linked. That sense of connection is the legacy.”
