“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”
Aristotle

WELCOME TO our fourth annual Design Awards issue where we are pleased to feature select winners from the annual ASID Design Awards competition held here in Illinois. Now in its’ sixth year, the American Society of Interior Designers ( ASID ) hosted their “Celebration of Design” Gala at Chicago’s Merchandise Mart Conference Center on September 17th where 33 Illinois-based interior designers and architects received a prestigious “Design Excellence Award.” The winners and categories we featured in this issue are: First Place, Residential under 3,000 Sq. Ft., Nada Andric, George Efstathiou / Nada Andric with George Efstathiou, First Place, Residential over 3,ooo Sq. Ft., John Robert Wiltgen / John Robert Wiltgen Design Inc., Best of Show, Kitchen over 200 Sq. Ft., Barbara Ince, Sarah Davis / Susan Fredman Design Group, Honorable Mention, Residentail over 3K Sq. Ft., Adele Lampert / Page One Interiors; Honorable Mention, Historic Restoration, Susan Fredman, Barbara Ince / Susan Fredman Design Group First Place, Singular residential Room, Frank Ponteiro / Frank Ponteiro Interior Design, First Place Showcase Room, Joan Craig / Lichten Craig Architects; First Place Contract under 10K Sq. Ft., Gina Berdnt / Perkins + Will; First Place, Contract over 10K Sq. Ft., Nicholas J. Luzietti/VOA Associates, Honorable Mention, Contract Over 10K Sq. Ft., Monica Gruse-Hartman / Nagle Hartay Danker Kanga McKay Penney Architects Ltd., Honorable Mention, Contract Under 10K Sq. Ft., Jaime Velez / Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, First Place, Retail, Gina Berndt / Perkins + Will, Honorable Mention, Healthcare, Jennifer McDermott / Perkins Eastman, Honorable Mention, Healthcare, Anne Rockwell / HDR Architecture Inc., First Place, Institutional, Trish Adelman / Eckenhoff Saunders Architects and First Place, Furnishings, Brian Peters / Design Lab Workshop.

Speaking of awards, I am looking forward to leaving for Shanghai this month to attend the 2009 Asia Pacific Interior Design Awards. I have been invited to sit on the International panel of nineteen Judges for this prestigious competition along with two fellow colleagues from Chicago, Donna Robertson, Dean of Architecture at IIT and Joseph Rosa, John H. Bryan Curatorial Chair of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago. Donna Robertson and I will be traveling to Shanghai and then on to Hanzhou to participate in this Award Ceremony being held on October 17th. I am especially excited to see that several local Chicago firms who entered into this competition have made the finalist list and hope to see them in China accepting an award.

Upon my return from this trip I will be diligently working on launching a North American Branch for the Asia Pacific Federation of Architect/Interior Designers. Our goal is to help architectural and interior design firms in Chicago and the U.S. promote their talents to clients in the Pacific Rim and beyond. This is especially timely, given the current economic conditions in our industry and a wonderful opportunity for firms here to promote themselves on an international platform. Look for our next issue this Winter when I’ll share with you more details on this including some of the award winning design work I had a chance to see. i4