Show your work to over 1500 members of the New York Metro Area Design Community.

For over 50 years SDA has represented the best in lighting products to New York’s design community. Every other year, we hold our manufacturer showcase giving the NY design community a chance to get up close and personal with the products we represent, to connect with their peers and of course have a little fun. This year we’ve decided to up the ante.

We realize in the end we’re nothing without the designers of New York. Traditionally we’ve worked with the city’s most prestigious architects and lighting designers to create award winning projects all over the world. We’re ready to expand that network and that’s what this contest is all about. We’re calling on the interior designers, architects and design teams of NY to re-imagine the lobby of the Metropolitan Pavilion for our show.

As you can see, the lobby is a pretty straight-forward, bare bones space. We use it for guest registration and giveaways, but this year we want it to be your blank canvas. We’re holding a design competition to re-imagine this space as a World of Light. We believe in the hands of great design teams, this space could be transformed into a beautiful entryway welcoming people into our showcase and brilliantly exhibiting some of our products as design tools.

The contest is simple. Using the guidelines we’ve posted we’re looking for a NY metro area designer (or design team) to re-design the lobby with a temporary installation. We’re looking for designs that make lighting the star. We’ll be giving the winner a $7500 design budget as well as access to some of our products in order to execute their design. The winning design will be fully realized in the lobby of Metropolitan Pavilion for the run of our show September 15th -17th. In addition to showcasing your work, you’ll be given access to the show floor where you can network with architects and lighting designers.

Submissions will be accepted from today until August 1st. Then we will then post the submissions right here and ask the global design community to come and vote. The top three vote getting designs will then be evaluated by our panel of judges who will decide the winner. We have much more on the judging criteria and submission procedure as well floors plans and design guidelines right here.

One last thing…we want the global design community thinking about lighting as a way to transform spaces. So we’re going to be talking about this using the hashtag #WorldofLight

You’ll see it on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest,and Facebook.

We can’t wait to see what the design community comes up with.