Open House Brunch and Design Speed Dating

Thanks to everyone who joined Van Alen Institute for our seasonal Open House Brunch and Design Speed Dating event on Saturday, April 30. We are thrilled to have hosted another redoubtable round of critics for this edition of our fast-paced portfolio review series, which pairs emerging designers with architects, educators, and design personalities in round-robin format. Our four critics were Benjamin Prosky (Harvard GSD), Nina Rappaport (Yale University), Marc Tsurumaki (Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis), and Alice Twemlow (School of Visual Arts).

And congratulations to our exceptional group of emerging designers: Simon Battisti, Shima Ghafouri, Elizabeth Lasater and Nico Weiss of Baukunst, and Alessandro Orsini.

If you weren't able to make it, we posted photos on our Facebook page and will upload video of the event shortly. And we’re always keeping an eye out for standout designers to feature at our next Design Speed Dating event, so be bold: submit your portfolio as a PDF attachment, 5 MB maximum, to vai@vanalen.org.