5 Under 40 Awards are presented by New England Home magazine and spotlight the hottest emerging talent in New England’s residential design categories: architecture, interiors, specialty design (furniture, textiles, lighting, accessories, and other home products), and landscape design.

These rugs will be auctioned off in person at the gala on Sept 14^th with all the proceeds going directly to Barakat a Cambridge, Massachusetts–based charity that works to strengthen education and literacy in Central and South Asia. The 5 Under 40 rug auction has been the #1 fund raiser for Barakat over the past decade and has helped build schools, pay teachers, provide transportation and health care to thousands of girls in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Selected by an exceptional committee of regional design leaders, 5 Under 40 award winners are the people to watch, producing some of the most beautiful and innovative work available today.

Click here for tickets to the 5 Under 40 Awards Gala!

To place a proxy bid on one of the 5 rugs below, call Ken Gurley at the Boston Landry & Arcari showroom at 617-399-6500 or email kgurley@landryandarcari.com.

Ryan Alcaidinho
Hutker Architects

Inspiration: 
“Feito à Medida”

Growing up, my mother, aunts, and grandmother were all tailors. These women were the first to teach me about the importance of proportion, and the details of construction. My childhood memories are peppered with their patterns laid out on the floor, the sound of a foot pedal sewing machine, and lace carried with love from Portugal. Their muslin on mannequins became my models in basswood.

There are parallels I now see clearly between these early influences and my pursuit of residential design. The balance of tension – between structure and movement, tradition and innovation – are central to both tailoring and architecture.

The patterns on my rug are intended to evoke the energy of the creative process. It’s the exciting space between idea and execution where direction is charted, and details are explored.

Inspired by the concept of a deconstructed menswear suit, this rug is a study of structure, composition, and personality. The cool steel color palette can be both feminine and masculine, fluid yet foundational. Nearly everyone owns a suit in black, grey, or blue. But true quality and elegance come through the nuance of design, construction, and customization – a method of fine tuning that connects the design to its specific inhabitant.

Christopher Buccino
Landschop

Inspiration:
Sea level rise will impact current land area surrounding greater Boston Harbor to a greater degree when compared with other land area along the New England coastline. The City of Boston will be adversely affected by this change due to the City’s low-lying geography on former marshland. This rug is a regional topographical representation, fifty square kilometers centered on Boston City Hall. The blue silk abrash is current land area that, according to NOAA, the extent of which will, at some future time, perhaps the year 2100, be underwater due to sea level rise.

During my graduate studies at Harvard GSD, I participated in the Extreme Urbanism travelling studio to Mumbai, India with Professor Rahul Mehrotra and Associate Professor Gareth Doherty. My research and design inspiration include the 2009 publication SOAK Mumbai in an Estuary by Anuradha Mathur, an accomplished Indian landscape architect who passed away February 26, 2022, and her partner Dilip da Cunha.

Mitigation of and adaptation to the effects of climate change is a core value of my landscape architectural design studio. Water is an important design element and consistent theme through many of my design projects.

Laura Pierce
Keeler & Co.

Inspiration:
Rooted in the traditional but always infused with a fresh perspective, our interiors are timeless yet fearless, and it was important to me to design a rug that embodies the Keeler & Co. approach. Growing up with an extended family in the United Kingdom, I find myself drawn to layered interiors and classic English textiles - whimsical florals and petite motifs in vibrant color combinations. With offices in both Boston and Seal Harbor, Maine, I elected to depict flora native to Maine, a place that is dear to me.I chose to design a runner because much of our work is in older, meandering homes with long hallways. Runners provide color and interest to places that are frequented but often under looked. Look closely and you’ll notice a shift in texture and material between the ground and the flowers themselves - almost if layered within the rug itself.

Marissa Santos
Marissa Santos Design

Inspiration:
My design serves as a love letter, an ode to all of the amazing women in my life. I instantly drew inspiration from my grandmother’s collection of handkerchiefs, created by generations of women before her, which she handed on to me before she passed away. Their square shape and delicate embroidered florals are a main feature and are a nod to my mother, who never met a flower she didn’t like. The border reflects a modern woven motif derived from an Azorean wool and linen textile given to me by my mother-in-law, handmade by her mother. My love of vintage rugs, given their sense of history and character, is reflected in the weathered appearance of the ground and the subtle hint of pink is my color of happiness. The fringed finish is for my best friend and salon-owner sister. I am honored to design a piece on behalf of Barakat; this is my modern heirloom and I hope that it inspires all of the other strong women and girls out there.

Joseph Werner 
Werner Hendrickson Landscape Architecture

Inspiration: 
As a Landscape Architect, I have a passion for growing things – and I mean that literally. While I love designing outdoor spaces for others, I find great joy, inspiration and peace in gardening at home. During the warmer months, I spend the majority of my free time puttering around the garden with my husband - our Beagle mix ever at our heels. We plan, prep, dig, plant, weed, prune, then often change our minds and start again.

I chose to design a long, linear runner - an ideal canvas to highlight my favorite herbaceous perennial in our garden: Iris germanica ‘Red Raptor’, with raindrops glistening like rubies on its rich, velvety falls.