Jury Alumni

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  Alda Ly

  Principal, Alda Ly Architecture PLLC

  2021 Built Environment Jury Captain

  Alda Ly is founder and principal of Alda Ly Architecture (ALA), a New York-based architecture and interior design firm that specializes in using biophilic principles to transform how healthcare, commercial, and cultural spaces work, look and, more importantly, feel. ALA was founded in 2017 when groundbreaking co-working platform The Wing tapped Alda to design its East Coast and California locations. ALA now works with a growing number of entrepreneurs, startups, and established organizations looking to overhaul traditional work, care, and retail models. Clients have ranged from Bloomberg and functional medicine provider Parsley Health to women’s loungewear company ThirdLove and social-action technology firm Blue State.
  
  Alda was born in New Zealand and raised in a working-class suburb of Los Angeles, where she watched her cabinetmaker father draw kitchen elevations and accompanied him to open houses to see how people shaped their spaces. From the moment she studied freehand drawing as a UC Berkeley undergrad, Alda knew she wanted to become an architect, and went on to earn a master’s in the field from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Before opening ALA, Alda worked at Rafael Viñoly Architects, 212box, HWKN, and Leong Leong. Alda is a Registered Architect in New York.

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  Dani Arps

  Interior Designer, Dani Arps LLC / Artisan

  2021 Built Environment Jury Member

  Opening her eponymous firm Dani Arps LLC in 2014; Arps is an interior designer who designs office spaces for top startup companies throughout NYC. She has worked with the Founders and CEO’s from buzzy startups like Daily Harvest, SeatGeek, Codecademy, and General Assembly; to create over 250K sqft of striking and of the moment designs that cater to their unique needs. She will be launching her new business venture, Artisan, which combines design, brokerage, and project management, this year.
  
  Featured in many publications like Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, House Beautiful, Architectural Digest, and Interior Design Magazine; She was named by top design publication, House Beautiful, as 2019’s ‘Next Wave Interior Designer’ and awarded as 2017’s ‘Star on the Rise’ by the renowned Decoration and Design Building.

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  Nina Etnier

  Co-founder, Float Studio

  2021 Built Environment Jury Member

  Nina Etnier is the co-founder of Float Studio, a design firm focusing on workplaces since 2013. She studied graphic design, marketing, and psychology at American University, then moved to London and shifted her focus towards interiors, completing her graduate degree in Interior Spatial Design at Chelsea College of Art and Design in 2009. Along with her business partner, she was named Contract Magazine’s 2019 Designer of the Year, and her history managing large scale projects and developing specific architectural details and custom furniture allows her to create spaces that are faithful extensions of brands.