Late May in New York City means a flood of design events surrounding NYCxDesign. I’ve tried to document as many of the interesting exhibitions and showrooms as I could so this will be a multi-part series. For anyone who couldn’t make it, this should be a good overview of what the festival had to offer.

HBF Showroom + Juniper

Textile and furniture maker HBF joined with Juniper lighting for an early kickoff evening of NYCxDesign. The loft showroom near the Flatiron building has been rearranged slightly since I last visited for the opening. There are plenty of new Bao stools, which have been sweeping up awards, scattered around the space.

Common Things – Finding the Light

Common Things is a compact home goods store that opened in 2023 in NYC’s East Village. For NYCxDesign, the shop presented Finding the Light, a collection of charismatic, handmade lighting. The exhibition included works from Los Angeles-based designer Candy Valentine’s Edition CF, Spanish-born and Brooklyn-based designer and maker Blanca Codina, Ryoko Nakamura and Christopher Flechtner’s Triptych, and New York-based neon artist Juno Shen. The fixtures that look like kitchen taps are actually repurposed light fixtures.

Head Hi Lamp Show

Continuing with lighting is Head Hi’s semi-annual Lamp Show, for the first time taking place in Manhattan. The show presents a global collection of lampers from novice to seasoned designers. I’m typically on the lookout for unique takes on readymade that frequently turn up. Jude Di Leo’s Light Emissions made from a repurposed semi-truck exhaust stack demonstrates some clever left-field thinking.

Hem Showroom

I stopped in to Swedish brand Hem’s showroom during the Mercer Street block party. The airy Soho space displayed some of the signature colorful accessories. There were a couple of new furniture pieces(sofa and chair) I wasn’t allowed to shoot and share here so maybe a visit back later this summer is on order.

Breathe With Me

Located on the floor of one the many empty office buildings in lower Manhattan, Breathe With Me was a lounge space presented by the Consulate General of Switzerland. Designed by Swiss experience designer Annabelle Schneider, formerly with Snarkitecture. The main feature of the space was a giant inflatable white cave that offered a space to decompress from a hectic run around the city. I also liked the futuristic cafe/bar created by USM furniture with an illuminated chrome grid that wrapped around two walls of the interior.

Photos and Text: Dave Pinter