Contract Magazine - January 2020 - 37

2020

DESIGNERS OF THE YEAR

J OS H U A AI DLI N
AN D
DA V I D DAR LI N G
AIDLIN DARLING DESIGN
By Jordan Kushins
Portrait photography by Carlos Chavarría

From Third Street, the floor-to-ceiling windows of In Situ-the Michelin-starred
restaurant that adjoins the main entrance to the San Francisco Museum of Modern
Art-frame the open-plan eatery like a life-size installation.
Thin columnar pendants shine on epic slabs of raw cottonwood transformed
into long, bar-height communal tables, while gallery-style lighting illuminates
intimate low rectangular tables flanked by benches and comfy chairs. The main
dining room extends back beneath slats of sugar pine undulating in a geometric
pattern above, and custom site-specific art adorns each wall. To passersby looking
in, diners and servers become players in a constantly changing performance piece;
to patrons gazing out, the ebb and flow of people and traffic provide an urban
tableau in constant motion. The effect is at once dramatic and understated,
an experience on either side of the glass-Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks"
comes to life by way of Aidlin Darling Design.
Joshua Aidlin and David Darling have spent two-plus decades refining
their multidisciplinary process and practice. "We design for the senses," Darling
says of their ethos-a thoughtful approach that merges material and form with
a purposeful sense of place, and always considers the myriad ways people
will interact with the space.
Their goal is to imbue concepts and constructions with a delicate balance
of timeliness and timelessness. "Our profession has become way more scientific
than it ever used to be, acknowledging all the ingredients that go into a building,
with sustainability issues, energy consumption, carbon footprints in construction,
and life span," Aidlin says. "We've had to become experts on everything in that
realm, which is somewhat overwhelming, but I'm optimistic; there's beauty in how
material and technological development has allowed us to design responsive
solutions. Ultimately, if you create enough value and build something that will last,
it will never be disposable or obsolete."
Both men had early experiences that smoothed the paths toward their
professional careers. Aidlin grew up in a family of artists, his mother a painter

and father a sculptor. "I spent a great deal of time with my father in his studio,
welding, grinding, and fabricating elements out of steel," he says. At a young age,
Darling was inspired by a friend's father, who happened to be "one of the few
modern architects in central Ohio," he says. "His studio, just off the town square, was
very much in the manner of the Eames Studio, an environment of multidisciplinary
stimulus. As kids we used to clean it on Saturdays for candy money, and I was
convinced-at age 6-that architecture was my destiny."
The pair's shared origin story officially begins in 1982 at the University of
Cincinnati. There, they both studied architecture; however, alternating internships
meant they never had a chance to truly connect on campus. It wasn't until they
independently moved out west that fate brought them together in San Francisco.
"We actually ran into each other at an all-night rave," Aidlin says of their
unconventional meet-cute. "It was totally serendipitous."
"There was this incredible freedom back then," Darling adds. "[The] South
of Market [neighborhood] was pretty much unoccupied, and there were these
parties in abandoned warehouses...people swinging from the rafters..."
"The city was definitely different," Aidlin says.
They were working at separate firms but began meeting up during evenings
and weekends for informal critiques, which eventually began to coalesce into what
they dubbed their "rubber band" method of collaboration. "Imagine a rubber band
pulling forward constantly," Aidlin says, putting one finger in front of the other
with a slight bit of tension, and again, and again, and again. "So often, critiques can
go sideways, or even backwards. We take early ideas and perpetuate them forward
into something that neither of us could have initially imagined."
Mutual respect formed the foundation for this productive rhythm; that they
could trust each other to bring their full creative selves to these sessions helped
convince them that they could push their shared visions and expand their reach
by joining forces professionally.
Aidlin Darling Design launched in 1998; by 2006, they had moved into the
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Contract Magazine - January 2020

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