Uncommon Uses for Common Materials

A plastic-wrap wall formed the front of the bar area, with only a narrow, horizontal strip of space through which the bartenders could communicate and pass drinks.

On July 28, some 1,200 guests headed out to the Watermill Center in the Hamptons for the art organization’s annual benefit, one of the season’s biggest draws for philanthropists. Inside the dinner tent a chandelier positioned over the dance floor was made up of plastic recycling bags and pink fabric streamers.

To give the cocktail area a focal point and conversation piece, event designer David Stark outlined the museum's historic home using fluorescent tape provided by 3M.

Artist Jennifer Rubell created a cell padded with edible cotton candy.

For the fourth annual Sweetlife festival, hosted by Washington eatery Sweetgreen at Merriweather Post Pavilion, the V.I.P. area’s DJ booth was outfitted with hundreds of bright orange traffic cones.

Umbrellas made from brightly colored tablecloths and twisted stacks of seat cushions hung from the ceiling.

A custom table that continued up a wall featured artfully arranged truffles along with fresh fruit, nuts, and spices, all set in a bed of melted chocolate.

The film 21 and Over hits theaters on March 1.

As a surprising and humorous way to decorate the cavernous Park Avenue Armory's drill hall, the Jewish Museum and David Stark used more than 5,000 T-shirts to form walls and a ceiling. The custom tees were painted with tongue-in-cheek takes on classic slogans, like "Frankie Says Relax It's Purim" and "Got Spiel?" "We love the fact that the characters of Purim—Esther, Mordecai, Haman, and Ahasuerus—could somehow be re-contextualized as the Fab Four, and thinking of that iconic T-shirt in which the Beatles names were lain out in the Helvetica font, we immediately made the leap to lay out our Purim names in that same format. And then that led to the blur of other iconic T-shirt graphics mixed with references to Judaism and Purim—all with a big smirk," said Stark.

Repeating rows of Barbie dolls provided eye-catching decor.

In the music room, hundreds of mylar balloons were strung across the ceiling and along the walls to create an elegant yet festive cocktail party atmosphere. The chandelier and wall and curtain treatments were preexisting elements, while all furniture was brought in.

Guests arriving at Cipriani 42nd Street

In November, “Skin & Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture” inspired the Rabin Rodgers-produced gala, with an artist installation made of recycled clothing and a performance by Rufus Wainwright.

At the Spamalot opening night party at Roseland, Tobak-Dantchik used Spam cans as bricks to construct a massive castle.

With a limited budget, Bruce sourced decals from a number of places to install representations of Pop Art-style graphics on the walls and columns of the lobby. The process lengthened production as the team applied and centered decals individually.

The dining room's entryway featured a National Design Awards insignia made of packing crates and an archway of seat cushions.

At the Marfa Film Festival in Texas in 2010, the We Came In Peace-designed Café Bustelo Filling Station was marked by the coffee brand's yellow-and-red aluminum cans. In addition to using the cans as planters for cacti, the designers crafted them into chandeliers and lighting installations.

In the lounge area, a dropped ceiling of silk strips and black glass chandeliers formed the main visuals.

A color-coded grid comprised of 20,000 squares of the museum's past press releases, editorial clippings, photos, and invites decorated the walls. The design also covered lamp shades suspended from the ceiling.

Trash-turned-art hung overhead in an indoor-outdoor seating area.

"The chair was the one that eluded us for the longest," said designer David Stark of the structure that required 2,000 bottles of water to be individually clipped into place.

Vintage T-shirts covered high tables.

Strings of lights with red Solo cup lampshades hung from the ceiling.

The bar was a take on an American classic toy—the Lite-Brite. Backlit and filled with several thousand straws that spelled out the #EveryDayMoments hashtag, the wall behind it become the focal point of the event.