Recipe for a Room: Places of Food and Culture

Two-person teams, each comprised of a student and architect mentor, will design small-scale Places of Food and Culture—rooms for food preparation and enjoyment. Food is the center of community celebrations. Exquisite culinary creations are like art, and recipes are food traditions passed down in families. Food distribution within food deserts can be a lifeline.

The AIANY Interiors Committee launched Recipe for a Room in 2020 to benefit NYC design students who had lost their summer internship opportunities, and to raise awareness and financial support for the New York City Restaurant Employees Relief Fund. Each following competition cycle has focused on a different prompt, model-building media, and local beneficiary. For the program’s 5-year anniversary, the theme returns to food, acknowledging that we are once again experiencing global instability due to funding cuts for global help organizations and suppression of cultural differences.

Net proceeds from the 2025 program will benefit Rethink Food, a NYC non-profit that bridges the gap between excess food and the communities that need it.

July 1, 5:00 PM
Student application deadline 

July 11, 2025
Selected Participants Notified

July 25, 2025
Contest Kick-Off Call

July 25–August 15
Students and mentors convene to design and build their miniature room 

August 28, 6:00 PM
Practice Run “Dress Rehearsal”

September 4, 5:30 PM
Students and mentors showcase their work at the Center for Architecture, and judges will name the winners

Two winners will be selected:

• Audience favorite
• Judges’ favorite

Each student designer will:

• Be paired with a professional mentor, either a licensed architect or interior designer in NYC
• Communicate regularly with their mentor, who will serve as a design advisor and collaborator in the creation of a novel place of learning
• Build a physical model of the room at 1″=1′-0″ scale.
• Develop the room’s design concept. Studies and trials are encouraged! This should be a messy, hands-on process, not a computer drawing or digital model
• Students will submit:
  1. Two 11×17 pdf slides of their designs
  2. A one-minute video, either a time-lapse of the model creation or a fly-through of the final product, which can include music and/or voiceover
  3. Present their room to three judges which will take place at the live 5-Year-Anniversary Contest Event on 09/04/25 at the AIANY Center for Architecture.  During the event, mentors may provide comments, but students will serve as the main presenters.

• Participants: We seek (8) eight student designers enrolled in Architecture or Interior Design programs studying in New York City in Fall 2025. Past participating schools have included: Columbia University GSAPP, The Cooper Union, New School/Parsons, New York School of Interior Design, NJIT, Pratt Institute, NYIT, Syracuse University’s Fisher Center and CCNY’s Spitzer School of Architecture. Past mentors have included firm leaders at Ennead, FX Collaborative, Woods Bagot, SOM, Rogers Partners, Studio397, Rice+Lipka, COOKFOX, Bernheimer Architecture and more
• Submit a 100-200 word Statement of Interest to aianyinteriors@gmail.com by 6PM ET on July 1.Please provide your name, email, phone number, college and year in the program. Tell us:a) why this opportunity appeals to you;b) what food-related design topic intrigues you the most;c) how your personal design interests relate to this program.