More than 500 members of the design community braved rainy and windy weather to attend Contract magazine’s 33rd annual Interiors Awards Breakfast on Friday morning, January 27. Cipriani’s in New York was the site of celebration for 2012’s winning projects that exhibit excellence and innovation across 14 categories of interior design projects, including education, corporate, retail, hospitality, healthcare, and student projects. In addition to naming the coveted Designer of the Year and Legend Award winners, the event also served as an unveiling of a newly designed, format for the publication by Rick Valicenti and Thirst, the 2011 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award recipient for Communication Design.

Introducing the morning’s theme, Contract’s editor in chief John Czarnecki explained the importance of unique partnerships in the challenging economy. “Partnerships with other firms, with other organizations, with manufacturers, and partnerships across professions and industries; that broadens the scope of what designers can do.” Collaboration was an important element in all the winning projects, as well as for Designer of the Year recipient, MASS Design Group, whose very practice is founded on partnerships, and Legend Award winner Carl Magnusson, who developed a wide range of partnerships throughout his illustrious career.

A firm founded on the principles of partnership, MASS Design Group was developed in conjunction with Partners in Health and has worked with the organization to build hospitals and schools and Rwanda and Haiti. “MASS is demonstrating the ability to improve people’s lives through design, and to be a primary example for how designers can rethink their role in the world,” Czarnecki said.

Accepting the award where founders Michael Murphy and Alan Ricks, who reinforced the importance of partnering to create good design. “We see a huge opportunity to come in early in a process as a partner and seeing through the successful delivery of a mission,” Ricks said. “Rather than providing a discrete design service such as delivery of plans alone, we want to be fundamental to shaping and achieving a mission.” Carl Magnusson received the 10th Legend Award from Contract magazine, for a lifetime of influencing design through partnerships with individuals and manufacturers alike.

View a complete list of winners here.

To see the complex contemporary and sophisticated graphic design of the new Contract, view our digital edition here.