April 22, 2019

Text: Annie Block

The Best of DIFFA Dining by Design 2019

Designers, manufacturers, and students banded together in late March for New York’s Dining by Design benefitting DIFFA: Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS.

Check out the best designs below:

Interior Design

Theme: Amid a Formica table setting produced by Reis Contracting, ceramic glove molds, and our signature bold wall graphic encouraged visitors to join as one.

Black Artists + Designers Guild

Theme: Led by Malene Barnett, Sheila Bridges, and Leyden Lewis, the curated setting backdropped by Shawn Theodore’s photomural To Govern or to Love represented the silent hope bonding us all.

Studios Architecture

Hosts: Herman Miller and
WB Wood.

Theme: An atypical table shape that fostered conversation was accompanied by the natural and the technological in an examination of what makes for an authentic experience.

Pratt Institute

Theme: Gold accents riffed on kintsugi, the Japanese technique of repairing broken pottery with metallic lacquer, to illustrate the strength in working together.

Mentor: Marks & Frantz.

Gensler

Hosts: Knoll and EvensonBest.

Theme: CNC-routed maple-veneered panels flanking a celebratory environment illustrated that individuals living with HIV/AIDS are equally deserving of happiness and beauty.

Rockwell Group

Theme: Custom wallpaper and a tablecloth of 6,000 actual feathers was a reinterpretation of James McNeill Whistler’s Peacock Room and a metaphor for those with HIV/AIDS to be seen and accepted.

IA Interior Architects

Theme: Awareness posters produced by nonprofits, activist organizations, and health departments from the 1980’s and ’90’s signified the discovery of AIDS 35 years ago and how far we’ve come—
and how much more there’s left to do.

Maiarelli Studio

Host: Novità Communications.

Theme: Awash in Yves Klein blue, used clothbound books supported the tabletop and spelled out Malorie Blackman’s quote reminding of the importance of being kind to one another.

David Scott Interiors

Host: Roche Bobois.

Theme: Splashes of sea blue anchored by Zaria Forman’s video artwork Ode to an Iceberg transported guests to a luxury ocean-liner dining experience.

Felderman Keatinge + Associates

Theme: Enclosed by Stanley Felderman’s futuristic drawings, a lunar setting celebrated the upcoming 50th anniversary of the first moon landing—and the human ability to dream big and achieve greatness.

Huntsman Architectural Group

Hosts: Teknion, Studio TK, Luum, and Tarkett.

Theme: Illustrating “Diversity Has No Boundaries” were austere driftwood branches against a vast landscape rendered in vinyl wall covering, encouraging guests to consider the meaning of inclusivity.

Patrick Mele

Host: Benjamin Moore & Co.

Theme: Old-world glamour came to Pier 92 in the form of a berry, cream, and gold palette and grand papier-mâché floral centerpieces.

INC Architecture & Design

Theme: MDF, paint, dried flowers—on their own, they are unremarkable materials but layered together, with the help of Mehovic Painting, they can be dramatic, exemplifying the “Us Is More” table theme.