Design is never just a room behaving well. It is how we understand atmosphere, taste, hierarchy, comfort, ambition, and, quite frankly, the quiet theater of daily life. The best interiors do not merely impress. They reveal point of view. They tell us who someone is, what they value, how they move through the world, and whether they understand the difference between expensive and interesting.
On May 5, Housing Works reimagines its signature fundraiser, Design on a Dime, as a one-night-only premium ticketed event at its new venue, Storied at 547 West 26th Street. After more than two decades of raising millions of dollars, the event returns with sharper urgency, a new format, and the same essential purpose: bringing together the design world’s most compelling talent to support Housing Works’ lifesaving services and advocacy for New Yorkers in need.
The premise remains brilliant because it understands something essential: design has power. A room can elevate mood, shift behavior, create safety, provoke desire, and hold memory. A home is never neutral. It can be a refuge, a declaration, a recovery, a beginning. This is what makes the event more than a stylish shopping rush, though the thrill of the hunt is, admittedly, part of the fun.
This year’s curated vignettes will feature luxury home décor, furnishings, and art donated by designers, dealers, galleries, shops, and coveted home brands, with pieces marked up to 70 percent off retail. The deeper charge is the mission. Proceeds benefit Housing Works’ work to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic and provide housing, healthcare, and social justice for all. Beauty, in this context, becomes useful. Taste gains a spine.
The 2026 edition also marks an important leadership transition. Founding Chair James “Ford” Huniford steps down after two decades of service, leaving behind an extraordinary legacy of vision and generosity. This year’s co-chairs include Rayman Boozer, Jamie Drake, Cliff Fong, Elissa Grayer, Young Huh, David Kaihoi, Charlotte Moss, Joy Moyler, and Miles Redd, a lineup that alone could make any design obsessive suddenly rearrange their calendar.
The participating design professionals include Anthony Dunning x BOONEY, Antonio DeLoatch Designs, Apartment 48, Benjamin Moore, Blake Brunson, Camia Brown Interiors, Dumais Interiors, Everick Brown Design, Hines Collective, Jason Saft, Leslie Banker & Co., Mark Cunningham Inc, Mark Hampton LLC x Villa & House, Petrie Interior Designs, Redd Kaihoi, Robert Stilin, S. R. Gambrel, The Brownstone Boys, and Yellow House Architects. In addition to the immersive vignettes, the event will feature a gallery of hand-picked donations and vintage finds selected by past participants, 2026 co-chairs, leading designers, and brands.
This year, designer Camia Brown brings a particularly compelling layer to the conversation, featuring works by Musah Swallah, Karina Lumière, and Andreana Dobreva under the tutelage of AA Luxury Atelier. That integration matters. Art should never be treated as filler, accent, or last-minute wall coverage. It is the emotional and intellectual voltage of a room. It gives a space pulse, tension, cultural memory, and, when placed correctly, a point of view that cannot be faked.
At Camia Brown Interiors, design is approached through color, texture, architecture, and narrative. Led by Founder and Principal Designer Camia Brown, the studio brings a hands-on, detail-driven philosophy to luxury residential, multifamily, hospitality, and community-focused spaces. Brown’s background feels refreshingly expansive: a Georgia native with dual degrees in Interior Design and Spanish from Georgia Southern University, NCIDQ certification, and a practice shaped by humanitarian projects in Costa Rica as well as community rebuilding work in New York City after Hurricane Sandy. That history gives the work purpose without becoming heavy-handed.
The pairing of Brown’s color-forward, culturally fluent interiors with artists such as Swallah, Lumière, and Dobreva feels natural and necessary. These are not passive works placed neatly into a vignette. They are living agents inside the room, capable of shifting scale, temperature, and meaning. In a design context, they remind viewers that art and interiors are not separate disciplines. They are collaborators in the construction of atmosphere.
Design on a Dime reminds us that taste can be useful, that luxury can carry responsibility, and that the art of living well should never be severed from helping others live better. On May 5, Storied becomes the room where bold interiors, serious design, sharp eyes, and real civic impact meet with purpose, color, and just enough New York electricity to make the whole thing irresistible.
