Krista Ninivaggi

Early life

Her early life consisted of growing up in New Jersey with her mother and father, Helene and John Ninivaggi. During her life in New Jersey she has always had a great love for city life. Ninivaggi began her design career at Rhode Island School of Design. She graduated with two bachelors degrees, one in fine arts and another in architecture. During her years as a student she had internships at the Guggenheim Museum, Gwathmey and Seigel, and Associates Architects. After graduation Ninivaggi decided to pursue her love of urban living and moved to New York City.

Career

New York is where she developed a sophisticated and cutting-edge approach to hospitality design. She mentioned she wanted to be able to "script the night" through her hospitality designs. After graduation Ninivaggi moved to New York City. After moving to New York City she began her career at Rockwell Group in the fall of 2002. During her time at Rockwell Group she met her husband, William Prince, who was a colleague of hers at the time. He had graduated from Ohio State and received a masters in architecture from Harvard. The two married at St. Patricks old Cathedral. Ninivaggi was 29, Prince was 36. After 3 years of working at Rockwell Group she left the company in 2006 and began working with a design consultancy for a brief period of time, and then moved over to begin work for Avroko. She credits her time at Avroko to when she was able to see a number of high concept interiors work realized. Ninivaggi remained at Avroko until 2010, and then began work at ShoP Architects in 2011. She said that she received the job at ShoP Architects through a softball league that also proved to be an ideal networking opportunity; she played on the field with people who later became her colleagues. During her time at ShoP, she was named director of interiors. At this current time Ninivaggi has now left ShoP Architects and is working to grow her own business, K&Co. Because of all of Krista Ninivaggis's success at the various companies she has worked for she attended the Annual Interiors Awards Breakfast, which was held on January 24. Here she was named the Designer of the Year for 2014.

Materials and Fabrication

During Ninivaggi's time at ShoP she began to work strongly with the relationship between materials and technology. She has spectacular skill in the technique of "direct to fabrication". She used technology, such as laser cutter and 3D printers in order to make mockups of various lighting designs, ect. Ninivaggi was such an expert in material innovation that her designs for a luxury vinyl tile were mentioned in Tarkett. Her design that was featured was called "glow" and the designers were said to have been chosen for their "creative strength and vision".

Projects

During the beginning of her career at Rockwell Group, Ninivaggi worked on several projects. One of these included the interiors for Nobu Fifty Seven, a sushi restaurant in New York City. As she moved onto work for Avroko she worked on the Lily and Blood Restaurant in Hong Kong. This project included multiple custom made design elements that she had to take into consideration. While at Avroko Ninivaggi also did design work for the Park Avenue Café. This café changed its interiors for each season, which meant there were 4 scenarios that Ninivaggi had to design for in this project. During her time at ShoP Ninivaggi worked on various projects, one being the Barclays Center. The space consisted of the Vault Suites, individual suites, the 40/40 Club, and other main areas. Another project she worked on were the offices for the online retailer called Shopbop, as well as a prototype for an eclassroom that is to be used in the teachers college at Columbia University. As Ninivaggi moved onto create her own company, K&Co, she got to have design input in an art design for a rainbow pool at residential complex Manhattan Park on Roosevelt Island. It's known as the "pop up pool club" and is considered to be one of the many great public art installations in New York City.