Diffa Dishes Out Natural Designs

While the annual tabletop design showcase featured the expected sleek, industrial environments (and traditional looks, as well), nature was a widespread influence.

February 28, 2007

Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS’ dizzying display of inspiring tabletops, designed by top names in the worlds of interior and event design, architecture, fashion, and other creative arenas, filled the cavernous hallway of the Waterfront last weekend. This year marked the Dining by Design fund-raiser’s 10th anniversary and its second appearance in this venue.

Allotted a 10- by 12-foot area in which to create a dining space, designers filled the event with an array of modern, feminine, masculine, traditional, wacky, introspective, earthy, playful, worldly, and elegant environments. This is a peek at just some of things we saw this year. (We’ll bring you a larger array of photos and details soon.)

Woodsy scenes cropped up in a bunch of places, as lodge, camp, and forest settings. There were references to the beach and the sea, and a dining room that captured the feel of a backyard. Herbs popped up as live centerpieces, and in jars as part of a laboratory-like display. There were flowers throughout the event, of course, but succulents proved to be very popular, showing up in the center of a sleek table with a square pool of water, mixed with woodland florals, and grouped in wooden baskets. We noticed a preponderance of mirrors and mirrored surfaces, and stately interpretations of salon walls, stacked with paintings, empty frames, and more mirrors. Some tables also made references—both directly and indirectly—to AIDS, whether it was messages of hope or exclamations of urgency.

David Sheppard, Diffa’s executive director, oversaw the event, along with Steven Williams, the organization’s special events manager, and Peggy Bellar, special events consultant. With Elle Decor and GE Monogram as the top sponsors, the three-day event incorporated two days of public viewings (with tasty offerings from restaurants such as Blue Smoke, Frederick’s, Buddakan, and Country as part of the first-ever Table-Hop & Taste program) over the weekend, a Saturday-evening cocktail party, and Monday night’s Dining by Design gala, where guests sat at the tables for dinner, prepared this year by Hudson Yards Catering. The entire weekend of events netted $800,000 for Diffa. —Lisa Cericola & Mark Mavrigian

Posted 02.28.07

For Diffa sponsor Rosemount Estate, Marc Blackwell created a tony wine cellar that showcased the winery's new diamond-shaped bottles. "I wanted to give the space a library feel, and then I found out that Rosemount Estate keeps their best wines in a cellar they call the library," he said. A tower of novels in the corner and armchairs at the head of the table added to the bookish effect.

Photo: Andrew Bicknell for BiZBash

A gallery of sorts is what Dan Kainen at Holoframe created for his dinner scenario. The white space featured three walls, each with its own long, rectangular, illuminated display of lenticular images. This translated into a table-length, lamplike structure shaded by more illuminated scenes.

Photo: Andrew Bicknell for BiZBash

Mark Veeder, creative director at EventQuest, created a chic green environment. "The setting is like luxury turned upside down," Veeder told us. "You can recycle simple, everyday things and make a statement." Objects like rolls of the Village Voice and packing peanuts filled clear plastic seating cubes. Performance artist-stenographer Sheryl Oring sat a desk made of a ream of paper, and took down guests' wishes for Diffa.

Photo: DigitalDiva/Courtesy EventQuest

As they did with several other designers, birds played a major role in artist Faune Yerby's table. Her inspiration was Conference of the Birds, a 13th-century book about the Sufi path to divinity by Farid Ud-Din Attar. In the design of the table, she used a variety of natural and handmade accents, including actual nests, hand-painted dinner plates featuring birds, and whimsical bird cutouts that gave the backs of the chairs a birdcage look.

Photo: Andrew Bicknell for BiZBash

Tracy Stern, creator of SalonTea, used a common design element (birds) to cast a dramatic vibe with her black-and-white tribute to Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. Stern set the moody scene with a large centerpiece of crows perched ominously on twisted branches. Black plumage was placed at each person’s place setting (the plates alternated between silhouettes of birds and Hitch's famous profile) and scattered across the floor.

Photo: Andrew Bicknell for BiZBash

Among the numerous chandeliers on display was the Academy of Art's simple yet striking piece, which consisted of dangling, candle-filled globes strung through a framed mirror. The globes acted as "bubbles of hope floating up," according to Monty Parsons, a design student involved in the project. Designers placed a round mirror on the center of the table below the chandelier so that the mirrors bounced off each other, reflecting glimpses of the dining space.

Photo: Andrew Bicknell for BiZBash

The lodge look was big this year, and Dransfield & Ross's table was a prime example. Working with an earthy color palette of wood tones and white, the dining table included real and faux wood accents, appearing as plates, chargers, flatware, and stumplike stools. The designers mounted miniature (fake, obviously) stag heads in rows on the whitewashed wood walls for a playful twist on traditional log-cabin decor.

Photo: Andrew Bicknell for BiZBash

At Continental Airlines' table, David Beahm's gravity-defying tree drew eyes upward. Pieces of wood arranged at the top of the floral sculpture formed the tree's roots, while stems of weeping willow cascading down to the floor created its leaves. In between, Beahm anchored blooming bulbs in place with a metal frame so that they hung suspended above diners' heads.

Photo: Djamilla Cochrane/Courtesy of Susan Blond Inc. and Diffa

Elle Decor editor in chief Margaret Russell found inspiration in Arabic motifs this year, creating a dining area reminiscent of a tented bazaar. Russell used yards of patterned fabric from Iksel to create tenting and tufted cushions for the low benches that surrounded each of the four cobalt-blue tables. A variety of colorful Moroccan lanterns and miniature orange trees grouped in the middle of each table made exotic centerpieces.

Photo: Djamilla Cochrane/Courtesy of Susan Blond Inc. and Diffa

Throughout the event, designers paired drinking glasses in unusual combinations. We spotted a variety of purposely mismatched styles and vessels in different yet coordinating colors. Trios of glasses placed on miniature silver platters adorned each place setting at the Alessi table for The New York Times. The trays added an element of shine into Alessi's predominantly white, ethereal look, inspired by the clouds.

Photo: Andrew Bicknell for BiZBash