Interior Design Hall of Fame by Interior Design Magazine

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INTERIORDESIGN.NET

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AE IA BACK I BACK

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40TH ANNUAL

MATTHEW WILLIAMS

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Our recap of four decades of the Hall of Fame supplement’s covetable top page. S6 HALL OF FAME MEMBERS S8 PLANNING COMMITTEE CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: SASHA MASLOV; MARIA PONCE; MELANIE DUNEA

S11 DAVID GALULLO by Edie Cohen S23 GABRIEL BENROTH, ADAM ROLSTON & DREW STUART by Rebecca Dalzell S35 HOLLY HUNT by Julie Lasky special tribute S48 DIFFA by Stephen Treffinger S55 JEFFREY BEERS by Jen Renzi

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2022 2023 2014 2017

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2016

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The Hall of Fame was established by Interior Design in 1985 as an annual gala honoring professionals who have contributed to the growth and prominence of the interior design field. The New York fête—held for more than three decades at the Waldorf Astoria before decamping, due to the hotel’s renovation, to the River Pavilion and now the Glasshouse—is accompanied by a print supplement featuring essays parsing the career highlights of the inductees. The covers of these sup plements, which are given to gala guests and inside the magazine’s December issue, represent a range of illustration styles, from black-andwhite portraits of such luminaries as Kengo Kuma and India Mahdavi to evocative project photography. Highlights of the latter include the shingled facade of the late Gaetano Pesce’s house in Bahia, Brazil, from 2006; the vaulted interior of the Nomadic Museum, a temporary New York structure made from shipping containers and recycled-paper tubes by Shigeru Ban, 2010; and Piersons Way, a barnlike home in East Hampton by Bates Masi + Architects, 2013. Here’s to 40 more years of inspiring design.

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2012 2010

2008 2019

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2015 2006

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members Marvin B. Affrime Joshua Aidlin Kalef Alaton Verda Alexander Davis Allen Anda Andrei Nada Andric Stephen Apking Pamela Babey Benjamin Baldwin Shigeru Ban Barbara Barry Florence Knoll Bassett Harry Bates Louis M.S. Beal Yves Béhar Hagy Belzberg Ward Bennett Maria Bergson Deborah Berke Bruce Bierman Peter Q. Bohlin Laura Bohn Joseph Braswell Robert Bray Don Brinkmann Tom Britt R. Scott Bromley

Denise Scott Brown Mario Buatta Collin Burry Richard Carlson Arthur Casas Francois Catroux John Cetra Alexandra Champalimaud Steve Chase Tony Chi Antonio Citterio Clodagh Celeste Cooper Robert Currie Carl D’Aquino Barbara D’Arcy David Darling Gray Davis Joseph D’Urso Todd DeGarmo Neil Denari Thierry W. Despont Orlando Diaz-Azcuy Angelo Donghia Jamie Drake Jack Dunbar Tony Duquette

Melvin Dwork David Easton Rand Elliott Henry End Mica Ertegun Ted Flato Gunter Fleitz Dag Folger Bernardo Fort-Brescia Billy W. Francis Neil Frankel Michael Gabellini Frank Gehry Arthur Gensler Richard Gluckman Mariette Himes Gomez Jacques Grange Michael Graves Bruce Gregga Charles Gwathmey Albert Hadley Victoria Hagan Anthony Hail Mel Hamilton Mark Hampton Antony Harbour Hugh Hardy Gisue Hariri

Mojgan Hariri Steven Harris Kitty Hawks David Hicks Edith Mansfield Hills Richard Himmel Howard Hirsch William Hodgins Malcolm Holzman Rossana Hu Peter Ippolito Franklin D. Israel Carolyn Iu Lisa Iwamoto Eva Jiricna Jed Johnson Claudy Jongstra Patrick Jouin Rick Joy Vladimir Kagan Melanie Kahane Ronette King David Kleinberg Robert Kleinschmidt Ronald Krueck Kengo Kuma Tom Kundig David Lake

Gary Lee Sarah Tomerlin Lee Naomi Leff Debra Lehman-Smith Joseph Lembo Lawrence Lerner David Lewis Neville Lewis Paul Lewis Sally Sirkin Lewis Christian Liaigre Piero Lissoni Nick Luzietti Eva Maddox India Mahdavi Stephen Mallory Peter Marino Leo Marmol Carlos Martinez-Florez Paul Masi Ingo Maurer Patrick McConnell Margaret McCurry Zack McKown Kevin McNamara Richard Meier Robert Metzger Will Meyer

Lee Mindel Francine Monaco Juan Montoya Paola Navone Lyndon Neri Frank Nicholson James Northcutt Jim Olson Primo Orpilla Mrs. Henry Parish, II John Pawson Gaetano Pesce Norman Pfeiffer Charles Pfister Warren Platner Donald D. Powell Gwynne Pugh William Pulgram Glenn Pushelberg Andrée Putman Ron Radziner Karim Rashid Chessy Rayner Lucien Rees-Roberts David Rockwell Lauren Rottet Nancy J. Ruddy Rita St. Clair

special honorees John F. Saladino Lawrence Scarpa Michael Schaible Craig Scott Annabelle Selldorf Peter Shelton Betty Sherrill Robert Siegel Paul Siskin Ethel Smith William Sofield Laurinda Spear Jay Spectre Andre Staffelbach Philippe Starck Robert A.M. Stern Rysia Suchecka Takashi Sugimoto Lou Switzer Rose Tarlow Michael Taylor Roger P. Thomas Matteo Thun Suzanne Tick Stanley Tigerman Patrick Tighe Adam Tihany Calvin Tsao

Billie Tsien Marc Tsurumaki Patricia Urquiola Michael Vanderbyl Carleton Varney Robert Venturi Lella Vignelli Massimo Vignelli Kenneth H. Walker Margo Grant Walsh Sally Walsh Kevin Walz Marcel Wanders Isay Weinfeld Gary Wheeler Mavis Wiggins Clive Wilkinson Bunny Williams Tod Williams Trisha Wilson Vicente Wolf George Yabu Mark Zeff Brad Zizmor

Robert O. Anderson Jaime Ardiles-Arce Robin Klehr Avia Stanley Barrows George Beylerian Howard Brandston Adele Chatfield-Taylor John L. Dowling Lester Dundes Cheryl S. Durst Lidewij Edelkoort Sherman R. Emery Edward A. Feiner Karen Fisher Arnold Friedmann Alberto Paolo Gavasci Gensler Jeremiah Goodman Louis Oliver Gropp Olga Gueft Erwin Hauer Jack Hedrich Benjamin D. Holloway Philip E. Kelley Kips Bay Decorator Show House Jack Lenor Larsen

Santo Loquasto Ruth K. Lynford Gene Moore Murray Moss Diantha Nype Sergio Palleroni I.M.Pei Dianne Pilgrim Paige Rense Ian Schrager Julius Shulman Barry Sternlicht Paula Wallace Tony Walton Kenneth Wampler Winterthur Museum and Gardens Andrea Woodner design icon David Rockwell

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planning committee Sara Armbruster Steelcase

Matthew Haworth Haworth

Rob Perri Armstrong World Industries

Casey Baxter HBF/HBF Textiles

Jerry Helling Bernhardt Design

Tom Polucci HOK

Matt Berman Workshop/APD

Erica Holborn Sandow Design Group

Joshua Rider Studios Architecture

Ece Calguner Erzan SOM

Rusty Joyce Tarkett

David Rockwell Rockwell Group

Dan Calkins Benjamin Moore & Co.

Kristie Juster Kimball International

Nancy J. Ruddy CetraRuddy

John Cetra CetraRuddy

Bob King Humanscale

Adam Sandow Material Technologies Corp.

Paul Cleary Momentum Textiles & Wallcovering

Robin Klehr Avia Gensler

Monica Schaffer ZGF Architects

David Kohler Kohler

Faraz Shah Turf

Andrew Kotchen Workshop/APD

Meghan Sherwin Keilhauer

Maxine Mann Teknion US

David Siegel Designtex

Richard Mines WB Wood

Ryan Smith 3form + LightArt

Giulia Molteni Molteni&C

Christy Thompson Milliken

John Edelman Heller

Byron Morton Vornado Realty Trust

Dan Tuohy Touhy Furniture

Carrie Edwards Isaac Shaw Contract

Ted Moudis, AIA Ted Moudis Associates

Simone Vingerhoets-Zeisman Ligne Roset

Vernon Evenson EvensonBest

Jennifer Nye Momentum Textiles & Wallcovering

Khoi Vo American Society of Interior Designers

Andi Owen MillerKnoll

Vicki de Vuono Bentley Mills

Mary Palmer HNI

Lois Wellwood HDR

Ed Pedrick Matter Surfaces

Rick Wolf Wolf-Gordon

Luca Pepori International Office Concepts, USA Inc.

Tim Wolfe Perkins & Will

Jackie Dettmar Mohawk Group Josie Driscoll Williams-Sonoma Inc. Business to Business James P. Druckman New York Design Center Cheryl S. Durst International Interior Design Association

Richard French Mannington Commercial Catherine Frinier Richard Frinier Design Studio Richard Frinier Richard Frinier Design Studio John Fuller Geiger

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Innovative. Inspiring. Influential.

Icons. Congratulations to the 2025 Interior Design Hall of Fame honorees for their visionary work shaping the spaces we inhabit.

Honorees: Holly Hunt, House of Hunt David Galullo, Rapt Studio Adam Rolston, INC Architecture & Design Drew Stuart, INC Architecture & Design Gabriel Benroth, INC Architecture & Design

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David Galullo

The founder, CEO, and chief creative officer of Rapt Studio at the three-city firm’s Manhattan, New York, office in 2019, shortly before its move to Brooklyn; photography: Matthew Williams. DEC.24

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Top: Bike storage at the Google Orange County office in Irvine, California, 2014; photo graphy: Eric Laignel. Center: Galullo, at Rapt’s San Francisco studio; photography: courtesy of Rapt Studio. Bottom: A game area at Adobe’s regional office in Lehi, Utah, 2013; photography: Eric Laignel. Opposite: A site-specific installation by Settlers LA at Zefr headquarters in Marina del Rey, California, 2018; photography: Eric Laignel.

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Call it DNA, call it destiny: David Galullo was fated for a career in design and architecture. Credit his late father, an Italian American builder and visionary who passed on a worldview that became the underpinning of his son’s multidisciplinary practice. “He taught me to see the world as an opportunity for improvement rather than something completed,” begins the consummate professional who, although a licensed architect, does not necessarily call himself such. “I don’t want limits.” And indeed, there are none—not in the all-encompassing work of Rapt Studio, of which Galullo is founder, CEO, and chief creative officer, nor in its governing principles. He launched the firm in 2011 in San Francisco, heeding the Golden State’s siren call after a childhood in Trenton, New Jersey, followed by a bachelor’s degree from the Syracuse University School of Architecture in New York and early professional experience in Philadelphia. Stints at such Bay Area firms as Pollack Architecture and Gordon Chong + Partners (now Stantec), preceded Rapt, which has since opened two other offices, in Los Angeles and New York, with a total staff of 45. “Design is all about building a story of belonging, about building places where people believe they’re part of something larger than themselves,” Galullo reflects, characterizing Rapt’s germinating idea. “I believe we can move the needle to a better community, to a better future.” For Galullo, these are not just lofty words. They are commitments Rapt puts into practice from a project’s inception through its design and development phases, all the way to completion. Initial client meetings always begin with a series of probing questions: Why are you different? Why do you matter? Why would the world be a darker place without you? “What we do is build connections—between people, and between a person and their best self,” Galullo responds when, tables turned, he’s asked the same questions. “There are no bad de cisions; I’m completely optimistic.” As for his superpower, he again credits his parents: “I can do whatever I put my mind to. I never accept ‘no,’ but I stay humble and curious.” Galullo’s widowed mother now lives with him and his husband Peter King on a 7-acre Sonoma sprawl with chickens, ducks, goats, and vegetable gardens—the perfect setting for the extravagant cooking and entertaining gatherings the extrovert designer delights in hosting. Work is a matter of gathering, too. Each project team assembles talents spanning the full creative spectrum: architecture, design, graphics, branding, marketing, and communications. With no siloing by skill set, everyone has a voice and is free to critique any part of a proposal, not just their area of expertise. This not only results in an integrated response to each brief but also helps shape Rapt’s organization, with its

three studios viewed holistically rather than as competing profit centers. “We’re breaking down barriers that other firms may have,” Galullo emphasizes. More than 70 percent of Rapt’s practice centers on the workplace, principally in the gaming, apparel, media, and tech sectors. Its roster of completed projects lists many big names: Google, Goop, The North Face, and Tinder for starters. Current or recently finished assignments include consolidating CNN’s Atlanta operations into longtime-client Warner Bros. Discovery’s sevenbuilding Techwood campus; relocating online gaming enterprise Roblox’s headquarters into a 180,000-squarefoot building in San Matteo, California; and having just completed language app Duolingo’s New York offices at 4 World Trade Center, going on to renovate and expand the company’s headquarters in Pittsburgh. Rapt’s global planning for international financial services corporation Macquarie Group supports the company’s real estate operations worldwide, providing local design firms with a template to work from, while for real estate developer Hines, another global enterprise, Top: The San Francisco office of Greylock Partners, 2023; photo graphy: Eric Laignel. Bottom: Tinder’s Los Angeles headquarters, 2020; photography: Madeline Tolle. Opposite top: The library at Dropbox San Francisco, 2016; photography: Eric Laignel. Opposite bottom: Hines’s regional headquarters in L.A., 2023; photography: Madeline Tolle.

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Top, from left: The New York showroom of The North Face, 2017; photography: Eric Laignel. “Design Is Language: Speak for Yourself,” at Milan Design Week 2024; photography: Eric Laignel. Center: Custom fabric and wallcovering patterns for The Laurel, a 2018 apartment building in San Francisco; photography: Sam Grey. Bottom: Ancestry’s Lehi, Utah, headquarters, 2017; photography: Jeremy Bitterman.

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Fresh Enhancements Coming Early 2025 kimballinternational.com

““His flair for the dramatic and innovative use of space are second to none, and the reason I’ve called on David so often over the years”—Michael Bloomberg

“What we do is build connections—between people, and between a person and their best self” Top, from left: TMZ Studios, 2015, in L.A.; photography: Eric Laignel. A Jay Howell mural at Vans’s headquarters in Costa Mesa, California, 2018; photography: Eric Laignel. HBO Max’s Seattle office, 2016; photography: Eric Laignel. Marketing collateral for 5th & Laurel, an event space in San Diego, 2015; photography: Sam Grey. Bottom: Fender’s San Diego headquarters, 2017; photography: Eric Laignel.

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“The best light is the light you don’t even realize is there. Light is an emotion — the emotion of the people and their sense of comfort within the space.” Olivier Perrigueur VP Commercial Architectural Business Lutron Electronics

Read the full case study lutron.com/blackrock Photographer: Connie Zhou

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Top, from left: VF Corporation’s 2020 headquarters in Denver; photography: Eric Laignel. Marketing collateral for The Yards, a multibuilding redevelopment project in Raleigh, North Carolina, 2020; photography: Sam Grey. Bottom: A 2016 parking garage, the first stage of a multiyear renovation of the Warner Bros. Discovery campus in Atlanta; photography: Eric Laignel.

Rapt crafted regional headquarters at West Edge, a mixed-use development in L.A. Rapt’s branding projects range from Bishop Ranch, an idyllic 585-acre business and residential park in San Ramon, California, to Tishman Speyer’s Merge, an amenity-rich, four-building, 5-acre business campus in Seattle. “Things just pop up,” Galullo says of Rapt’s encyclopedic portfolio. How about a kit-of-parts playbook guiding a retail rollout for the California cannabis concern Embarc Dispensaries as a sign of the times? Segue to another core Rapt capability: interactive installations, exemplified by a pair created for Milan Design Week: The first, 2019’s “Tell Me More,” explored communication and connectivity, guiding visitors through a series of curtain-enclosed, single-person booths glowing in the vaults beneath the city’s main railway station; the second, “Design Is Language: Speak for Yourself,” last spring, featured a carefully curated selection of vintage furniture pieces in what Galullo describes as “a call to action for people to take back design as a tool to tell their unique and personal stories.” It was also a caution about the industry’s rampant, unchecked adoption of AI, which he acknowledges as a useful resource, but fears could lead to bland outcomes lacking distinctive characteristics or narratives. Galullo is generous in sharing his expertise, contributing articles and interviews to a wide range of outlets, from Fast Company to the BBC World Service. Recent examples include lively discussions of pandemic lessons, return-to-work policies, and a growing focus on neurodiversity. The big takeaway: One size does not fit all. “People are more than their job descriptions,” he says, emphasizing the importance of creating adaptable workplaces that accommodate varied sensory needs and cognitive styles. Galullo’s articulate thoughtfulness has made him something of a media darling, consistently covered over his four-decade career. So, tell us something no one else knows. “I just got my Italian passport,” he gleefully responds. To which we can only reply, in bocca al lupo!—his ancestral homeland’s idiom for good luck. s20

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Gabriel Benroth, Adam Rolston & Drew Stuart text: rebecca dalzell

The cofounding partners of INC Architecture & Design, from left: Gabriel Benroth, Adam Rolston, and Drew Stuart; photography: Sasha Maslov.

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Top: Parlour Brooklyn, a condominium building in New York’s Park Slope, 2020; photography: Ivane Katamashvili. Center: A lounge at Saint Marks Place, a 2022 condominium project in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn; photography: Conor Harrigan. Bottom: Part of the three-story subterranean events center at the TWA Hotel at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, New York, 2019; photography: Eric Laignel.

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Opposite: The flight center’s former baggage-claim area turned ballroom; photography: Eric Laignel.

Adam Rolston, Drew Stuart, and Gabriel Benroth, the cofounding partners of INC Architecture & Design, joke that together they make one great principal. Rolston, the creative and managing director, is a conceptual thinker who steers the overall aesthetic of a project. Stuart, the development and construction director, is a detail-oriented people person who helps realize the design on-site. And Benroth, the studio and information director, is a systems guy who creates innovative, interactive renderings. Since they started INC in 2006, the firm has grown to 50 employees—and scored such marquee commissions as the master plan and renovation of the rink level at Rockefeller Center—but each partner still works on every project. “That’s our secret sauce: We’re owners who are deeply engaged,” Stuart begins. They also love what they do, and their youthful enthusiasm is evident in INC’s distinctive work. The trio’s complementary skills emerged early. As kids in their respective hometowns of Los Angeles and Danville, Kentucky, Rolston and Stuart sat in on architect meetings when their parents built new homes. Rolston also absorbed the warm, refined style of his grandfather’s Gregory Ain house, and later studied painting and sculpture while at Syracuse University’s School of Architecture; he still practices art today and even recently wrote a book called Joyspace, his manifesto on inclusive design. Stuart focused on the craft of building: He bought and renovated a historic house by hand while at the University of Cincinnati School of Architecture and Interior Design. Benroth, meanwhile, got his creative start planning plots for the local garden club in his Men nonite community in northern Ohio. At UC a year after Stuart, his tech-heavy courses included computer programming and 3-D animation. The trio met in 1999 in New York at Tsao & McKown Architects, where Rolston, who was a senior associate and the studio director, hired Stuart and Benroth as s24

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“Every project is unique, which takes a lot of time interns; Rolston had joined the firm in 1993 after a stint at Bentley LaRosa Salasky. The three worked because you’re not copying and pasting,” Benroth on high-end residential and commercial projects says. “If we have clear processes in place, it frees and found they were a strong team. “They knew people up to be more creative and engaged in the how to get the best from the client and from each work.” That includes interior and exterior archiother,” fellow Interior Design Hall of Fame member tecture and furniture design; sometimes, INC is and firm partner Calvin Tsao remembers. After the architect of record as well. “We like to have control of the whole scope,” Benroth adds. seven years together at Tsao & McKown, they At first, INC took on multifamily building renostruck out on their own—with the full support of vations in Manhattan, as well as exhibition deTsao and copartner Zack McKown. “There’s no trasigns for the Jewish Museum and Rolston’s own dition in the profession of helping people start weekend house in Upstate New York. They were studios, no passing of the baton,” Rolston notes. relatively small projects, but the partners ap“But Calvin and Zack did.” They even handed off proached them as they always do: “We aim to a few projects that Rolston, Stuart, and Benroth were working on to get them going. be honest, thoughtful, and earnest with our ideas,” Stuart says. INC is based in New York. As the name implies, That philosophy is apparent in INC’s industrial, the firm is a collaborative practice: It is an acronym sustainable interiors at 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge, for incunditas necessarius creo, or joy utility craft, a 2012 commission that marked a turning point. terms that allude to the partners’ roles. “We took the design of our studio as seriously as the design Top: The Morrow Hotel Washington, 2022; photography: of our projects,” Rolston says. Thanks to Benroth, Eric Laignel. Bottom: The partners at INC’s studio in the who, while interning at UC’s Center for the Study Hudson Square neighborhood of Manhattan; photography: of Practice in Architecture in the late ’90’s, had Shawn McCarney. collected organizational handbooks and analyzed Opposite top: 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge in New York, 2017. industry metrics from other architectural firms, the Opposite bottom: Rockefeller Center Rink Level, an approxi trio developed a structure that prioritizes cooper- mately 50,000-square-foot project from 2022, also in New ation, transparency, efficiency, and technology. York. Photography: Eric Laignel. s26

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Top, from left: Another amenity space at Saint Marks Place; photography: Conor Harrigan. The building’s terra-cotta facade; photography: Ivane Katamashvili. Bottom, from left: Anagram Columbus Circle, 2024, a luxury rental building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The lobby at Anagram. Photography: Brooke Holm.

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Developer and Hall of Famer Barry Sternlicht, CEO of Starwood Capital Group, entrusted the then-unknowns with conceiving the brand’s flagship. Rolston, Stuart, Benroth, and their team devised greenery-filled spaces that are of their place on the Brooklyn waterfront yet avoid pastiche. There’s a story behind every plank of reclaimed wood. The rooftop pool affords breathtakingly panoramic New York City views. All of which added up to the project earning myriad awards and landing on the September 2017 cover of Interior Design.

At the Line DC hotel in Washington—which, like the 1, opened in 2017—INC balanced the site’s history as a landmarked former church with the offbeat sensibility of the surrounding Adams Morgan neighborhood. A few years later, over the COVID pandemic, the firm completed the public spaces for the Morrow Hotel Washington, a ground-up project in the nearby NoMa area that is “airy, open, and joyful,” Rolston notes, a much-needed dose of optimism for the city.

Top, from left: The 2021 NYCxDesign Award–winning stair in the lobby of 1740 Broadway, an office building; photo graphy: Joshua McHugh. A house in Bethel, New York, 2016; photography: David Heald. A hotel in Aspen, Colorado, a current project; photography: Brooke Holm. Bottom: The Vandewater, a 2022 condominium building in Morningside Heights, Manhattan; photography: Alice Gao.

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“Behind all INC projects is a rigorous discovery process the founders call ‘forensic aesthetics’”

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ICE DANIEL GERMANI

Left: A house in the Catskills, New York, 2021; photography: Noah Kalina. Right, from top: A three-story town house in Chelsea, Manhattan, 2016; photography: Joshua McHugh. The Line DC, a Washington hotel, 2017; photography: Eric Laignel.

More hospitality and residential projects followed, including the Joseph, an artsy luxury hotel in Nashville, Tennessee, and Parlour, Saint Marks Place, the Vandewater, and Anagram Columbus Circle, all multiunit apartment buildings and all winners of NYCxDesign Awards. A renovation of the landmarked Gulf Tower in Pittsburgh into a hotel and residences is next, as is the ground-up Velvære, a wellness and residential community in Park City, Utah, and Manifest, a barbershop/café/store and private members club in Washington. Behind these and all INC projects is a rigorous discovery process the founders call “forensic aesthetics.” This involves not just understanding the physical and programmatic context but also how people experience it. “It’s about an emotional connection to place,” Rolston notes. For the event and gallery spaces at the TWA Hotel at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, INC harnessed nostalgia for the

flight center and Eero Saarinen himself, looking to the architect’s early rationalist works to distinguish the new structure from the 1960’s one. Similarly, at a place as iconic and freighted with memories as Rockefeller Center, INC wasn’t about to reinvent the wheel. “You have all the ingredients upstairs at 30 Rock—we just remixed them,” Stuart says. Walking through the airy, curvaceous bronze-and-terrazzo concourse, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a restoration of the original art deco design, but it’s all brand-new—and done so expertly that it sits well with locals and the building’s office workers as it simultaneously draws tourists. This approach takes a certain humility and empathy with the end user and a sensitivity to inclusivity for all. It’s about absorbing the invisible but ever-present history and meaning of a place and translating it into something physical, be it a floor plan or fluted panel. Rolston, Stuart, and Benroth “have a fundamental compassionate nature toward human use and human life,” Tsao picks up the thread. “That’s why their work is compelling and unique. . . and will last.” s32

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Holly Hunt text: julie lasky

The founder of HOLLY HUNT at her House of Hunt studio in Chicago, 2024; photography: Maria Ponce. DEC.24

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Even if you never met Holly Hunt, you could pick her out in a crowd. She is a doyenne of an exquisitely understated, timeless modern style, who worships fine materials and artisanship and is heavily into neutrals. That woman with the perfectly coiffed silver hair and contrasting slim, dark jacket, surrounded by museum-quality artwork and impeccably tailored furnishings? Yep, that’s her. An entrepreneur, Hunt revolutionized the design, production, marketing, and sale of custom furniture through the eponymous company she founded in 1983. But she was not to the showroom born. As she writes in her recent memoir, Holly Hunt: Fearless in the World of Design, she was born in 1942 in San Angelo, Texas, to a family loaded with professional degrees; a great-uncle was the doctor who delivered Elvis Presley, and both her parents were educators. Her high school years were spent in Anson, a tiny town near Abilene (which later became notorious as the inspiration for the 1984 movie Footloose). Encouraged to take up teaching herself, Hunt majored in English at Texas Tech. But what she really wanted was to work in fashion. After graduating, she entered the executive training program at Foley’s, a Houston department store, and later landed a job there as an assistant buyer in millinery. In 1969, she lit out for New York City and began designing for a costume jewelry company. Hunt’s book begins with her marriage to Ron Tackbary, whom she met in 1973 and settled with in Chicago. In 1983, she took over R.J. Randolph, a faltering showroom at the Merchandise Mart that gave her the ability to buy furniture at a discount. She and Tackbary divorced soon after; Hunt was left to run

Opposite top: Holly Hunt’s Aspen, Colorado, residence, a House of Hunt project, 2023; photography: Bjorn Wallander. Opposite bottom: The HOLLY HUNT Miami showroom, 2015; photography: Jonathan Allen. Left: The stairway in the Aspen residence; photo graphy: Bjorn Wallander. Right, from top: Hunt in The Financial Times, 1987. The Siren dining chair; photography: Jonathan Allen. The cover of Hunt’s recent memoir, Holly Hunt: Fearless in the World of Design, featuring marketing imagery from the 2010’s; photography: Kendall McCaugherty.

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From top: The Mandarin lounge chair, 1998, and Courrier dining table, 2000’s, both by Christian Liaigre. Hunt and Liaigre. The Architects & Designers Building showroom in New York, 2008. Opposite: Inside the A&D showroom with Stefan Gulassa’s Helios chandelier, 2016; photography: Marlene Rounds.

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the business and raise their three young sons. Aside from changing the company name to her own and deciding to represent designer collections, her only business plan was the conviction that she could do better. “Most showrooms had terrible customer service and awful product display practices,” she recounts. “Lines were thrown on the sales floor helterskelter, so that it was difficult to see what went with what.” Customers endured lengthy delays and fab rication mistakes. There was no transparency in pricing. Decorators bought the furniture at a discount and could charge whatever they wanted to clients, pocketing the difference, and eroding trust when discrepancies were exposed. Hunt did away with all that. Expanding first to Minneapolis in 1985, then New York’s D&D Building in 1994 and Washington in 1999, ultimately reaching a total of 12 showrooms nationwide, she revealed designer net prices (much to the industry’s disgruntlement) and insisted on taking responsibility for orders even when it cut into her profits. She also took the radical step of creating showrooms that looked like places where clients might actually want to live, with architectural detailing, artwork, and a mix of products and styles. In these rooms she displayed pieces by such established designers as Vladimir Kagan and Rose Tarlow, helping to turn talents into luminaries, and lesser-knowns that she discovered, including Los Angeles glass artist and lighting designer Alison Berger and French sculptor and furniture maker Christian Astuguevieille. She hired the avant-garde graphics studio Thirst to mold a sophisticated modern image in print advertising and marketing materials. The common thread binding everything together was superior quality. In the early ’90’s, Hunt met Christian Liaigre in Paris. She could see by the French furniture designer’s sleek, monochromatic clothing, which was much like her own, that they were creative soulmates. “Fashion sets the tone for everything in design,” she says. Soon she was manufacturing and selling Liaigre in the U.S., transforming the look of American in teriors so that they glowed with sleek, dark woods and creamy textiles. “It was art collectors who were buying it, who understood the clarity and cleanliness and classic proportions,” she recalls. The ultimate seal of approval came in 1997, when André Balazs’s Mercer Hotel opened in downtown Manhattan with Liaigre-designed interiors. Hunt’s excellent judgment led her to launch a showroom in the Miami Design District in 1998, the very early days of a neighborhood that’s now chockablock with the likes of B&B Italia and Burberry. Her idea was to create something different from a nook in a maze—a template set by the Mart. Conceived by architect Alison Spear, it had the vibe of a luxury boutique and was accessible to all. “It was the first showroom in the country where people came to see it for the showroom,” Hunt says.

“Hunt took the radical step of creating showrooms that looked like places where clients might actually want to live”

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Top, from left: The Dallas showroom, 2015; photography: Jonathan Allen. Hunt with Vladimir Kagan in his prototype chairs, 2015. Center: A Kagan sofa sketch. Bottom: The Los Angeles showroom, 2022; photography: The Ingalls.

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Left, from top: A 1985 ad by Chicago graphic designer Rick Valicenti. Alison Berger’s Body and Heart pendant fixture, 2019; photography: Jonathan Allen. Right, from top: The Ronin and Peso side tables and the Bridger daybed; photography: Jonathan Allen (3). A marketing campaign photographed in the Hamptons by Paul Warchol.

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She repeated the experiment with her second Manhattan showroom, which was renovated to look like “a street-level jewel,” she notes. It had been scheduled to open in the Architects & Designers Building in October 2001, but then 9/11 happened. Hunt saw beyond the chaos and delayed the opening a mere two months. The showroom was there, waiting, when normality was restored to the traumatized city. Hunt was equally agile when the 2008 recession hit, streamlining and restructuring the company, which had 250 employees by that time. Two years later, just as it was returning to economic health, Liaigre sold his business to private investors. “We’re going to design our way out of this,” she told her staff, launching Holly Hunt Modern, a collection that was even more profitable than her partnership with the Frenchman had been.

Some of Hunt’s successes were so big they exerted gravitational pulls. In her book, she describes offers she couldn’t refuse that led her to part with things she dearly loved, namely her company. In 2014, Knoll bought it for $110 million. She retained her CEO position for two years and oversaw the planned expansion of showrooms in Dallas and L.A. She remained a consultant until 2019, while designing such projects as a penthouse at the Surf Club in Miami Beach. Today, she presides over House of Hunt, a boutique interior architecture and furniture studio in Chicago that weaves together many creative strands at every scale, from the design of such products as the Dune sofa for HOLLY HUNT to the renovation and development of whole homes, with residences in Colorado and Florida among the firm’s current and recently completed projects. Hunt still doesn’t have a business plan and that’s just the way she likes it—being challenged as she goes.

Top: The Holly Hunt–designed penthouse at the Surf Club in Miami Beach, 2019; photography: Nathan Kirkman. Center, from left: The penthouse’s pool deck; photography: Nathan Kirkman. Christian Astuguevieille’s Rhizo table; photography: Jonathan Allen. House of Hunt’s Dune sofa, 2023. Bottom: The media room in the Surf Club penthouse; photography: Nathan Kirkman. s44

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special tribute In honor of the Hall of Fame’s 40th anniversary, we celebrate the legacy, future, and positive impact of two valued members of the industry

DIFFA: Design Industries Foundation text: stephen treffinger

h a l l of fa m e special tribute Turning 40 is an occasion to celebrate past accomplishments—and, perhaps more importantly, to set your future agenda. That’s what DIFFA: Design Industries Foundation has been doing as it transitions into a fifth decade. “Every responsible not-for-profit should constantly reevaluate its mission to ensure alignment with its community’s needs,” says Dawn Roberson, DIFFA’s executive director since 2018. As such, the foundation, which just rolled out a new name this year, not only continues its essential work of granting funds to organizations that provide assistance and healthcare access to those impacted by HIV/AIDS but has also been pursuing an expanded scope: addressing the broader challenges of food and housing insecurity and the mental-health issues that underserved populaces face—and that increase the likeliness of diagnosis. The reality is sobering: In the U.S., living with HIV/AIDS poses real risks—of becoming unhoused, of developing a mental-health condition, of less engagement with prevention. “When people lack the proper resources, they’re not able to get tested or treated,” Roberson explains. “So, attacking the problem at the source ensures more people are educated and have treatment access.” Scientific advances over the decades have made the disease both easily preventable and manageable, but that certainly wasn’t the case in 1984 when DIFFA was founded, out of real desperation. At the time, many in the design world were losing friends, colleagues, and loved ones to AIDS, which was

Top: Gensler-designed posters announcing DIFFA’s 40th anniver sary gala in New York, 2024. Bottom: Gensler and Herman Miller’s Dining by Design table, 2014, featuring photomurals from Braden Summers’s All Love Is Equal series; photography: Eric Laignel. Opposite top: A 2016 Dining by Design installation by the late Ali Tayar of Parallel Design, produced by SilverLining; photography: Garrett Rowland. Opposite bottom: Gensler’s Dining by Design lounge, 2017; photography: Alan Barry. s48

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largely being ignored by the government and even the in four cities: Chicago, Dallas, New York, and San private sector. Professionals from various creative Francisco. During a recent 40th-anniversary benefit fields, from fashion to interiors, banded together to bash, former executive director David Sheppard assist vulnerable community members who weren’t lauded the contributions of design-industry heavyweights who’ve guided DIFFA over the years, includgetting help—making sure they could pay bills, get ing chair emeriti Cindy Allen, this magazine’s editor to doctor appointments, and much more. in chief, and architect and Rockwell Group founder Since then, DIFFA has granted over $57 million to hundreds of entities that bolster under-resourced David Rockwell. “Without David, DIFFA’s doors would have closed after the 2008 crash,” Sheppard notes. populations throughout the country; beneficiaries “And companies that said ‘no’ to me for decades said include Alpha Workshops, God’s Love We Deliver, ‘yes’ the minute Cindy became chairman.” Visual AIDS for the Arts, and Housing Works. An Allen, who served in that role from 2012 through important distinction is that DIFFA provides unrestricted grants, allowing flexible spending so agencies 2023, when she handed the reins to Thomas Polucci, HOK’s director of interiors and workplace design, are empowered to use the money in a way that is was instrumental in galvanizing the commercial side most effective for them. “We can help keep the lights of the profession for donations, fundraising events on, we can help them get new equipment, we can help pay their staff, we can help with the basic office like Dining by Design (rebranded in 2022 as DIFFA necessities—basically, whatever they need to keep by Design), and programs such as Specify with Care, running, which is crucial,” Roberson says. whereby affiliates such as Maya Romanoff and WolfStrong leadership and an army of dedicated vol Gordon donate a percentage of profits to the cause. unteers have been essential to the long-term success During her tenure, Allen rallied the support of design of the organization, which currently hosts chapters firms including Gensler and M Moser Associates s50

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Left, from top: The Dining by Design program, 2018. The 2023 program from the rebranded DIFFA by Design. Center, from top: A 2019 program. The Après Ski fundraiser invite designed by Gensler, 2023. Right, from top: Gensler’s branding for the 40th anniversary. A Tayar sketch for a 2014 Dining by Design installation with Wolf-Gordon. Opposite top: Neon signage at Dining by Design, 2015. Opposite bottom: Roche Bobois’s installation, 2017, with a chandelier by Gensler.

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DIFFA grants funds to organizations providing aid and access to healthcare for a diverse group of people impacted by HIV/AIDS, food and housing insecurities, and mental-health issues.

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and brands ranging from Shaw and Steelcase. “From Giants of Design firms to giant manufacturers, our industry friends really stepped up to the plate to become valiant supporters,” Allen says. “We’ve come full circle, from our industry being majorly impacted by HIV/AIDS to our industry having a major impact.” For Rockwell, a Hall of Fame icon and inductee whose firm is also celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, the decision to join DIFFA in 1994 was extremely personal. “I had just lost my brother Rick to AIDS and was in the throes of grief,” he recalls. “It was so cathartic to be in a community with designers and artists who were as passionate as I was about trying to help save lives in any way we could; being able to act when I felt powerless was so important. It’s been a gift to watch DIFFA grow and now deliver on this new mission of addressing the most pressing societal challenges, like housing and mental health.” These are indeed complex issues, but ones our industry remains well positioned to solve, especially when we join forces to supercharge our strategic and creative capabilities.

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Left top: Designer Bill Bouchey’s donor pinboard for Idea Lab 2012: Carpet Art, a DIFFA benefit held at Interface New York; photography: Keith Claytor/Timefrozen Photography. Left center: The logo of DIFFA grantee God’s Love We Deliver. Left bottom, from left: A God’s Love We Deliver client; photography: Rommel Demano. That organization serves 17,000 New Yorkers in need; photography: Lydia Lee. Clients receive medically tailored, home-delivered meals; photography: Lydia Lee. GLWD clients also receive nutrition counseling; photography: Rommel Demano. Visual AIDS project director Shirlene Cooper with a member of its Women’s Empowerment Art Therapy Workshops, a DIFFA grant recipient that supports artists living with HIV, at the “Love Positive Women” exhibition at MoMA PS1; photography: Jess Saldaña. Right top: Executive director Dawn Roberson with board chair emeriti David Rockwell and Cindy Allen Allen in 2022; photography: Marion Curtis/Starpix. Right bottom: Housing Works, a DIFFA beneficiary, at the 2023 Queer Liberation March in New York. s52

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CONTRACT & HOSPITALITY at The New York Design Center

WORKSHOP/APD FOR ARTERIORS THE FINE BALANCE BETWEEN ART & INTERIORS

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Jeffrey Beers text: jen renzi

The namesake founder of Jeffrey Beers Inter national, who passed away in March at age 67; photography: Melanie Dunea.

special tribute

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Top, from left: Glass sconces, among the 35 Jeffrey Beers handcrafted for Bar Lui in New York’s SoHo neighborhood, JBI’s inaugural project, 1985. Photography: Nelson Bakerman. Bottom: Beers blowing glass at UrbanGlass in Brooklyn, New York, where he also served as board member; photography: Michael George. Opposite: The dining room of a residence in metropolitan New York, 2024; photography: Eric Laignel.

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Way before “experiential” became a hospitalitydesign buzzword, Jeffrey Beers was pioneering spaces that embodied the concept. The New York architect, who passed away from cancer earlier this year, masterminded sensorially forward, holistic environments that were stages for interaction, transporting patrons straight to the zeitgeist. Over his four decades as a hospitality leader, Beers left an indelible imprint on commercial design, influencing the look, feel, flow, and vibe of restaurants, entertainment venues, resorts, to luxury residential developments from Greece to Dubai, Mexico and Singapore—a legacy Jeffrey Beers International is continuing under a leadership team of loyal colleagues. Integral to Beers’s success was his intuitive understanding of client and crowd. He had an authentic connection to his audience as a bon vivant, globetrotter, and born-and-bred New Yorker attuned to the cultural pulse. Growing up, his parents, both entrepreneurs—mom was in the travel biz, dad was in advertising—introduced him to the city’s restaurant scene, and extensive family travel gave him a firsthand feel for hospitality from a young age. Design was also in his DNA: His grandfather was a chief architect of the Wrigley Building in Chicago. Beers began his career auspiciously. At the suggestion of his Rhode Island School of Design mentor, glass artist Dale Chihuly, Beers applied for and won a Fulbright scholarship that took him to Rio de Janeiro, where he worked for Oscar Niemeyer for two years, imbibing the emotional, sculptural nature of Brazilian modernism. Subsequent time at the office of I.M. Pei taught Beers the power of detail, the importance of diplomacy, and the equal weight that should be given to form and feeling. After eight years with Pei, he struck out on his own, making a splash with JBI’s inaugural project, in 1985: Bar Lui, its 180-foot bar— billed the city’s longest—celebrating the space’s

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long-and-narrow proportions and setting the tone for a portfolio that would make social connection the design focal point. JBI quickly expanded with high-profile Manhattan venues like China Grill and Fiamma that demonstrated Beers’s keen awareness of atmosphere. His spaces had a theatrical precision that delighted guests while fulfilling the operator’s needs—chor eographing movement from bar to table, planning sightlines and light levels, and designing for seamless service. This talent resonated with top culinary talents; over the years, Beers collaborated with celebrity chefs Masaharu Morimoto, Gordon Ramsay, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and especially Daniel Boulud, with whom he created five restaurants across the globe, beginning with DB Brasserie at the Wynn Las Vegas, in 2006. Though Beers was synonymous with NYC nightlife in the early years, he was also one of the first big-name designers to put a more refined stamp on Sin City as it was morphing in the late ’90’s into a haute culinary destination. With venues like Rum Jungle, Tabu Ultra Lounge, and Japonais, he nailed the sybaritic flourishes that such a context s58

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required but he also brought nuance and polish to the game. His emotive approach translated well to hotels, too. Beers’s first major top-to-bottom resort was the Cove at Atlantis on Paradise Island in the Bahamas, in 2007, and he was also given the honor and respon sibility of upgrading such storied destinations as Gloria Palace in Rio de Janeiro and The Fontainebleau in Miami Beach. JBI has teamed with top brands including Fairmount, Four Seasons, Hard Rock, and Omni, creating transporting environs rounded in modernism that fused the magic and joie de vivre of the travel experience with more practical needs of guests and operators. In the last decade or so, as residential developers increasingly borrowed from the hotel playbook, Beers’s expertise extended naturally into that genre, evident in his concepts Top: The Cove at Atlantis, Paradise Island, the Bahamas, JBI’s first major resort hotel project, 2007; photography: Peter Paige. Bottom: Bossa Terra limestone pavers for tile and stone company AKDO, launching spring 2025. Opposite top: The lobby of Alyx at Echelon Seaport in Boston, 2021. Opposite bottom: Conferencing space at the Renaissance New York Midtown Hotel, 2016. Photography: Eric Laignel.

h a l l of fa m e for iconic residential projects like One West End and One Fifty Seven in New York and Alyx at Echelon Seaport and Ritz-Carlton Residences in Boston. Glass, a medium Beers first explored at RISD with Chihuly, remained a passion throughout his life and a centerpiece of many projects and products. He could often be found experimenting at the crucibles at UrbanGlass in Brooklyn, where he was a devoted board member. Beers loved how the medium’s fluidity and dynamism “contrasted the rigor and discipline of architecture” and marveled at the material’s unique ability “to bring about emotion,” he said at a 2016 lecture at St. Francis College. That viewpoint perhaps summarizes his ethos and design approach, which gave equal credence to control and freedom. He had an exceedingly holistic approach to space

“The world of architecture can be so much more than just putting a building together; it can embody so many of the arts” Left: Aura nightclub, Paradise Island, the Bahamas, 2007; photography: Peter Paige. Right, from top: Roc Nation head quarters in New York, 2020, winner of an NYCxDesign Award, an OPAL Award, and a World Design Award; photography: Eric Laignel. DB Bistro Moderne at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, JBI’s first project in southeast Asia, 2010; photography: Kelly Campbell.

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that celebrated the multidisciplinary nature of his chosen discipline. “The world of architecture can be so much more than just putting a building together; it can embody so many of the arts.” Beers’s influence went beyond the built environment. He was a mentor, guide, inspirer, friend, and cheerleader, renowned for giving you his full attention, making you feel you were the only person in the room. He treated everyone the same, from the plumber on the job site to celebrity clients like Jay-Z, for whom he designed the 40/40 Club and Roc Nation headquarters, both in New York. As a leader, he was known for fostering a collaborative, creative spirit within his studio. He often said he looked for “good dance partners” in his team, bringing together people who both shared his enthusiasm and invested their personal passions. Among them are partners Nora Liu-Kanter, Michael Pandolfi, and Tim Rooney, longtime colleagues who now guide the firm alongside COO Julia Choi, CFO Jeffrey Ashey, and the older of his two sons, Justin, a former real-estate exec—a team Beers handpicked when succession planning. Such continuity ensures that Beers’s ethos—creating spaces that connect people and connect with people—remains at the heart of his firm’s award-winning work. Top: Tabu Ultra Lounge nightclub in Las Vegas, 2003; photo graphy: Eric Laignel. Center: 108 Leonard, a National Associa tion of Home Builders Nationals Award–winning luxury condo minium building in New York; photography: Evan Joseph. Bottom: Ajiro Burst of Happiness wallcovering in hand-inlaid paulownia veneer in Wine O’Clock and Strong as Steel color ways for Maya Romanoff, 2021.

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