IIDA Celebrates Its 25th Anniversary With Annual Interior Design Competition

Karv One Design’s Hyperiôn Light Year is a 14,000- square-foot exhibition in Chongqing, China, for marketing commercial space in the Longfor Hyperiôn Project, part of a 5-million-square-foot development centered around the city’s new high-speed rail node. Photography by Dick Liu/Karv One Design.

As the International Interior Design Association celebrates its 25th anniversary, its annual Interior Design Competition continues to recognize and encourage innovation in the design and furnishing of interior spaces. Its counterpart, the annual Will Ching Design Competition, is still doing the same with awards for commercial projects by firms with five or less employees.

All submissions were judged—for their suitability and originality, with special attention paid to how finishes and furnishings are integrated—by a U.S. jury comprising Interior Design Hall of Fame members Verda Alexander, Studio O+A co-founder, and Gary Lee, founder of Gary Lee Partners, as well as K&Co founder Krista Ninivaggi.

Three of the winning projects had previously been published in our pages: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s Optimo hat atelier in Chicago; Asthetíque’s Ice Scream parlor in the Bronx, New York; and One Plus Partnership Limited’s Wuhan Panlong Plaza Yinxing Cinema in China, also the winner of the Interior Design Best of Year Award in the entertainment category. The IIDA jurors’ also awarded a house in Vinkeveen, Netherlands, by i29 Interior Architects and Chris Collaris Architects, and Yod Design Lab’s Nam Modern Vietnamese Cuisine in Kiev, Ukraine. Another restaurant, Mean Noodles by OpenUU, will take home the Will Ching award when all the winners are honored at the Silver gala in Chicago on June 9, the kickoff to the annual NeoCon trade fair.