Parties that celebrate design are bound to be stylish, or so I hoped as I set out one night last week to attend the Museum of Arts & Design young professionals gala and the Domino magazine bash in honor of the eight designers who have created interiors for women with AIDS and their children.

Judging from the crowds at both parties, a lot of young people in New York care about design. Whether architects, graphic designers, bankers, or fund-raisers, they make deliberate choices about their clothes, eyewear, shoes, and jewelry. So the crowd was interesting, if not conventially beautiful.

Party planners had to get creative to impress these folks. At the Museum of Arts & Design party at the club Strata on Broadway and 21st Street, goldfish swam in vases containing orange zinnias (color-coordinated with the name of the chairwoman of the museum’s young professionals group, Lisa Orange Elson).

At the Domino magazine party in a former mansion on 79th Street and Fifth Avenue, the striking accent was curled paper transformed into topiaries and bars, tucked into ornate woodwork, and decorating the moldings and the fireplaces. Artist Leah Singer created the installations, for which she and a few neighbors spent days curling paper. “It was sort of like ‘Stitch and Bitch’ – it was ‘Curl and Furl,'” Ms. Singer said.

The installations served as a whimsical backdrop to wall exhibits showing the designs that have been created for the Woodycrest House in the South Bronx, at which Domino has taken a lead role, working alongside the developer, the nonprofit Housing and Services Incorporated. The Conde Nast shopping magazine for the home, which launched a year ago, helped round up the designers for the home’s interiors, including Timothy Whealon and Ruthie Sommers. It also secured donations of Apple computers, Benjamin Moore paint, and Dyson vacuum cleaners. In addition, an art auction at the party raised $15,035.

The project was an opportunity to explore the social value of design. “I wanted to create a refuge from urban New York City – a character-filled home defined by its comfort and cheer,” Celerie Kemble said of her project.

David Netto watched a video of potential residents before developing his design. “I spent a long time thinking about the courage and humor of these women. They have had intense lives, and they deserve an environment that reflects some of the sophistication that any rich life is full of,” Mr. Netto said. He chose dark colors “because I did not want to pander to them,” he said. “I wanted them to have a sense of mood. They can handle it.”

Sara Bengur was the designer who first brought the idea for the project to Domino’s editor in chief, Deborah Needleman. For Ms. Bengur, the chance to design a home for a woman with AIDS was a chance to create “an environment … that would facilitate their healing process.”

On this night, design certainly seemed uplifting.

agordon@nysun.com