Meet Little Wing Lee, the Up-and-Coming Designer Taking Home This Year’s FDC + NICOLEHOLLIS Grant
Currently, the Feminine Structure Council (FDC), alongside one another with Advertisement100 designer Nicole Hollis, has introduced its latest grant receiver will be Brooklyn-primarily based designer Little Wing Lee. Meant as a usually means of supporting BIPOC female-figuring out designers, the grant awards $15,000 to a single receiver. In addition to that economical support—which is supposed to be utilized to extend company measurement or develop new structure collections—Lee will also acquire mentorship from Hollis’s studio.
In April 2021, Hollis initiated a gain auction through her Instagram account to increase dollars for the prize, getting extensive support from establishments like Friedman Benda, Gallery FUMI, the Potential Fantastic, and many others.
“We are privileged to be able to supply economic aid and mentorship to progress fairness in style and design,” Lora Appleton, FDC’s founder, claims. “Nicole Hollis and the larger sized design local community came jointly to supply sources for this much-necessary grant plan. We are humbled by the motion and seem forward to ongoing achievement supporting womxn of color in design and style.”
Lee—who has much more than 15 yrs of multidisciplinary style experience—works across interiors, architecture, and environmental style. The designer begun her profession in documentary tv and movie, in which she labored on several Oscar- and Emmy-nominated tasks. Soon after learning landscape architecture at Harvard’s Graduate University of Style and design and earning her Master’s in inside layout at Pratt Institute, Lee worked at many prestigious studios, such as Apparatus, SOM, Rockwell Team, and Ace Hotel Team (exactly where she continues to be the present design director).
In 2019, Lee started out her have organization, Studio & Jobs. Since its debut, the multifaceted layout workplace has been a projection of Lee’s exclusive vision, giving all features of home projects—from inside style and architecture to personalized furniture, lighting, and finishes.
“I’m seeking forward to applying a part of the award to fund two product enhancement projects we initiated earlier this 12 months: a rug style and design collaboration and a modest home furnishings collection,” Lee says. “We’re at an inflection level, and this grant will give me the prospect and momentum to develop and commit in long term initiatives.”
At present, the designer is in the midst of doing work on Ray Harlem, a significant-scale local community challenge in New York Metropolis, alongside Frida Escobedo and Handel Architects. The framework will consist of rental household models, retail, and party room for the Nationwide Black Theatre. Accurate to Lee’s considerate design approach, interiors will incorporate references to the Harlem landscape and lifestyle.
In addition to winner Lee, other grant honorees include Anne Dereaux, Cherub “Chopp” Stewart, Laura Casanas Maya, Teruko Kushi, and Urvi Sharma. Individuals honorees will acquire a calendar year of FDC membership, as nicely as accessibility to the organization’s Mentor Match software.
“We envisioned the FDC + NICOLEHOLLIS Grant to motivate and aid a brighter, and extra equitable, upcoming for design and style, and with the announcement of our to start with winner and honorees, we’ve started,” Hollis shares. “I’m so excited to see what our winner Small Wing and our honorees do upcoming.”