Contract - January/February 2014 - 59

PHoToGRaPHY: ScoTT FRaNceS, couRTeSY oF RockWell GRouP (ToP); IlluSTRaTIoNS couRTeSY oF SHoP aRcHITecTS (BoTTom TWo); amY BaRkoW PHoToGRaPHY, couRTeSY oF SHoP aRcHITecTS (oPPoSITe FouR)

interior that changes with each of the four seasons,
for restaurateur alan Stillman and his son, michael.
"I remember the first meeting with michael and alan
Stillman, and michael started to tell us about this
idea, and I was instantly excited about the
possibilities," Ninivaggi says. "What an amazing
design challenge to solve. We essentially created
four different restaurants in one, and we did not lose
a single seat in any of the designs."
Ninivaggi also designed the interiors for lily
& Bloom, a restaurant in Hong kong, while part of
the avroko team. "It was the first construction
project that I had done overseas, and the schedule
was incredibly compressed-design through
construction in just over six months," she says.
"and yet the project turned out beautifully. We
were working with a great client and established
connections with factories in mainland china. Nearly
every element in the restaurant-including all the
tiles and furniture-was custom fabricated for us.
We designed every inch of that space."
Having grown as a designer at avroko-
even hiring and mentoring many of the firm's
new designers-Ninivaggi was beckoned by the
opportunity to lead the interiors team at SHoP in late
2010. She says it was difficult to leave, but she had
the support of the avroko partners. Bradshaw says,
"I knew it was a great opportunity for her."

While with Rockwell Group,
Ninivaggi was part of the team
that created the interior of
Nobu Fifty Seven in New York
(above), and she designed the
back-lit onyx host stand.

Softball and SHoP
as the story goes, softball played an integral role
in Ninivaggi landing at SHoP. While at Rockwell
With SHoP, Ninivaggi has
Group, Ninivaggi and Prince were instrumental in
designed interiors for the
establishing a softball team for the firm. Rockwell
Botswana Innovation Hub
Group was collaborating with SHoP on a project at
(right and bottom), which
includes a HIV research lab,
the time. "We put a team together at Rockwell, and
as well as a data center and
we challenged SHoP to a game," Ninivaggi says.
engineering floors. The local
"I kept in touch and got the know the partners at
context and customs were
key to understand for the
SHoP through the league. By the summer of 2010,
design of this building,
after the games, Gregg Pasquarelli, in particular,
now under construction.
started to ask me questions at the bar about how
to start interiors at SHoP. We had numerous
discussions about this, and I had lots of opinions
about who they needed to hire, and how they should
structure it, and how it should integrate with the
architecture side."
tasked to create what that role would be. What kind
Those after-softball chats led to meetings with of services would we offer to our clients, how
the rest of the SHoP principals, and Ninivaggi's point would we do interiors, what would our processes
of view on interiors left an impression. "I very clearly be? When I started to develop the different systems
remember when we were talking with krista about
and processes that we would use to do our interior
her coming on, she said, 'I'm really interested in
design work, I had to take into account the different
doing this because I don't know what a SHoP interior typologies that we do in the office," Ninivaggi says.
would be,'" Pasquarelli says. "and that was, to me,
"We are doing education, office design, hospitality,
the exact right attitude. It's the process of design-
multi-family residential, and entertainment. and we
not just a replicated image of a space."
are doing it under one umbrella in the interior design
Ninivaggi was hired, and took on her new
studio, working closely with the architects."
role at SHoP with vigor. While she arrived with
Pasquarelli is quick to identify the impact
considerable experience in hospitality interiors, she
Ninivaggi has had. "You can see the effects on our
was asked to lead an interiors effort across multiple
firm as a whole, and the gaining of new techniques
project types. "as the director of interiors, I was
and abilities and skills," he says. "It has been really
contract

Contract - January/February 2014

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