Year Of The Tie

Published in January, the top 100 Interior Design Giants, were really 101 because of a tie for the final spot. Now we have the second 100 Giants, also really 101, also because of a tie for that place. Data for this year's hospitality Giants won't be published until October—if you hear us humming the theme from The Twilight Zone, you'll know what happened.

The second 100 Giants earned a total of $342,990,697 last year. That's a fee increase of 10 percent, adjusting for the tie. The dollar value of interiors rose an amazing 20.7 percent, while square footage increased only 7 percent, an indication that these firms are doing better than ever at getting more money for less space.

Interestingly, this year's group earned a greater percentage of fees from the practice of interior design, 69.4 percent, than did the first 100 Giants, 58.2 percent. (In both cases, building architecture was the runner-up at 24.3 and 29.7 percent, respectively.) For the second 100 Giants, hospitality accounted for more than twice the earning power as that category did for their January counterparts, and corporate projects brought in 17 percent more business. Conversely, health care and retail accounted for less than half as much business for the current group as for January's list.

Since the turn of this century, the second 100 Giants have experienced a high degree of volatility, with rankings turnover in the double digits. This time, there are 26 that did not appear in the previous study—compared with a change of only five for the top 100 Giants, which have not recorded double-digit movement in six years. (The hospitality Giants have had turnovers of up to 40 percent.)

The greatest change the second 100 Giants have undergone in the past five years is to require that staff members possess a high degree of computer savvy, sometimes in specific programs such as Photoshop and Revit. And in a refreshing blast from the past, two firms now put a premium on the ability to draw by hand. Environmental mastery runs a distant second to technology. Other criteria include affability, the ability to work with clients, business sense, a knowledge of foreign languages, National Council for Interior Design Qualification certification, and experience in hospitality and health care. We're a little mystified at responses that professionalism and organization are virtues some firms didn't consider essential in 2002. At least they do now.

A whopping 93 percent of this year's second 100 Giants reported specifying environmentally sensitive products, up from the 87 percent last year. Total product value was $402,950,000, up from $278,940,000. The most frequently specified green products were, in descending order, carpet, hard flooring including bamboo and linoleum, paint, fabric, wall covering, furniture, building materials, and lighting—the low ranking for the latter possibly being the result of an increased reliance on daylighting techniques. Among specific environment-savers cited were wheat-board and straw-board substrates for case goods, dual-flush toilets and waterless urinals, recycled jeans for insulation, corn-based fabric, soy-based floors and counters, brown-paper ceilings, and—talk about low-tech environmentalism—found objects and antiques.

—Judith Davidsen