Designer of the Day: INC Architecture & Design

Here, we ask designers to take a selfie and give us an inside look at their life.

Age: 57 (Adam). Aires (Drew). 42 (Gabe).

Occupation: Architects and interior designers.

Instagram: @inc.nyc

Hometown: Los Angeles (Adam). Danville, KY (Drew). Bluffton, OH (Gabe).

Studio location: New York City.

Describe what you make: We’re a passionate, open-source, multidisciplinary architecture and design studio dedicated to the integration of the design disciplines including product design, interior design, and architecture.

The most important thing you’ve designed to date: The most important thing we’ve designed to date isn’t a thing at all. Our biggest contribution is how we think about design. We see design as a social act. We strive and have developed processes within our studio to create objects, spaces, and buildings that carry an emotional impact—cultural contextualism is what we call it.

Describe the problem your work solves: Our work strives to fight the generic. Too much of design today is driven by the flood of online influence or ego-driven signature style. We propose that good design can be driven by the social, cultural, physical, and historical context of a project. At INC, “context is king” and is what turns the commonplace into the exceptional.

Describe the project you are working on now: We have over 20 active projects in our studio, ranging from 3,000-square-foot restaurant for Alfred Portale in the Village to a 400-foot-tall, 55-unit residential needle tower in Brooklyn.

A new or forthcoming project we should know about: Our newest noteworthy project would be TWA Hotel events spaces, which we are currently finishing up and will officially open in the fall. These were developed to support the revitalization of the landmarked Eero Saarinen airport terminal into a luxury hotel at JFK. The project is a time traveler’s dream. Conceived of as a posthumous collaboration with Eero Saarinen, the state-of-the-art event and gallery spaces are high-performance nostalgia with Jet Age glamour, engineered for the global village of today.

What you absolutely have to have in your studio: Music, music, and music. Right now I’m obsessed with Glasser (Adam). I currently have our new dog, Murphy, in the studio (Drew). Noise-canceling headphones (Gabe).

What you do when you’re not working: Art and archi-tourism, running, swimming, hanging out with friends, my kids, my kid’s moms, my husband of 30 years, and yoga (Adam). Going to my cabin in the Catskills, getting out to fly fish whenever possible but also exploring my new/old hood, Brooklyn Heights (Drew). I am partners with a flight attendant so whichever flight is open, I’m on it (Gabe).

Sources of creative envy: The Alvars dead and alive: Alvar Aalto and Álvaro Siza. Also, Paul Rudolph, because what’s not to like about the first openly gay Brutalist architect in American history that fashioned the sexiest interiors and buildings of his generation (Adam). Currently inspired by the ongoing movement in independent American design—the makers are quickly pushing the dialogue about America’s contributions. Furniture, objects, and lighting have a shorter time scale and their work has the ability to be on the leading edge in capturing our current outlook (Drew). Recently, F.A. Kittredge, chief engineer for Zion National Park (Gabe).

The distraction you want to eliminate: Negativity (Adam). Dog accidents in the office (Drew). Tweets (Gabe).

Concrete or marble? Concrete, because anything invented in the 4th century BC is timeless (Adam). Concrete with marble aggregate (Drew). Biodegradable? (Gabe).

High-rise or townhouse? Townhouse, because generally speaking, I’m a down-to-earth guy (Adam). Townhouse, if only they were affordable (Drew). Only as jointly realized by Archigram (Gabe).

Remember or forget? Remember and forget, because without history we are doomed to make the mistakes of the past but to live in the past is to forsake the future (Adam). Always forgetting everything… (Drew). “Upload to the cloud,” so both (Gabe).

Aliens or ghosts? Aliens, because the future belongs to the misfits, the freaks, the freethinkers and all of us aliens on earth (Adam). Aliens, but not from other star systems… aliens from the tangential multiverse. Plus, there’s no such thing as ghosts (Drew). Ripley or Rebecca… I love Sigourney Weaver (Gabe).

Dark or light? Light, because as Le Corbusier so beautifully put it, “Architecture is the learned game; correct and magnificent of forms assembled in the light” (Adam). Light (Drew). “Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.”—Anne Frank (Gabe).