Design fairs are expensive. This new hybrid gallery wants to give creatives an alternative

There’s a new space for designers and the people who appreciate their work in Manhattan’s Chinatown: Hello Human House. It’s a hybrid gallery, events space, and office where a furniture maker might debut their latest collection, an artist may hold a talk or you might attend a pop-up.

Founder Jenny Nguyen, proprietor of the five-year-old membership-based strategy and public relations company Hello Human, describes the venue as a new type of creative infrastructure that is built around a core challenge for designers: finding space to exhibit what they make. For a fee, Hello Human’s members are able to rent out the front gallery space by the week and use it for whatever they wish.

'We hear from our members that a big struggle is to show physical work in a meaningful space where people can experience it,' Nguyen says. 'You either wait for the approval of a gallery for representation, you engage with trade shows, or open your own showroom. With real estate becoming more and more inhospitable price-wise, it's becoming harder and harder for designers.'

While galleries, trade fairs and showrooms remain important, Nguyen sees an opportunity to add an alternative. Hello Human House will enable designers who don’t have a showroom of their own to exhibit outside of a design week. Meanwhile, the gallery itself resembles a residential space, with natural light and a tin ceiling – details that can help translate designers’ work more immersively than they might be able to do in a trade show or design fair booth.

'The ecosystem needs something that is not concentrated in a really competitive week and where designers can actually invite you into the world that they've created,' Nguyen says. 'This is just kind of a slower, more intentional way to experience the work.'

To inaugurate the space, Nguyen is transforming it into a drop-in reading room and café from 4-7 September 2025, complete with architecture, design, and fashion periodicals from Iconic Magazines and books from Dent de Leon; a pop-up of the Brooklyn coffee shop Larry’s Cà Phê; a collage-making workshop for children hosted by Pen Pal Studio (on 6 September only); and ‘Arnold Circus’ stools by Martino Gamper provided by Domestic Goods, a Hello Human member. 'We’re just encouraging people to come in and linger,' Nguyen says.

Next up in the space? A pop-up by Loose Parts in October and a product launch by Ladies & Gentlemen Studio later this fall.

Hello Human House arrives at an interesting moment in New York’s art and design world. Galleries have been closing at a rapid pace due to rising expenses, including rent and art fair fees, as well as changes in the ways that they can reach audiences. Incidentally, Hello Human House is located in the former Lyle Gallery space, which founder Lyn Tyrpien decided to let go in order to pursue other avenues, such as partnerships with other galleries and building a digital community. While coworking spaces have solved the challenges of people needing office space without a traditional lease, the market hasn’t yet caught up to the real-estate needs of designers looking for exhibition space.

'The business model – where your revenue model is going out and selling work either at trade shows or through the gallery and to your collectors – is becoming untenable,' Nguyen says. 'I’m grateful that we can still operate in this gallery-showroom model, but we’re not under the pressure of having to sell out a show. We are supported by our members.'

Meanwhile, the space – which is about 800 sq ft total and also includes workstations and a kitchen in the back – will also serve as a home base for Hello Human’s team, a physical space where they can film and photograph promotional work for their members as well as host in-person seminars and workshops that were formerly all online only. Nguyen hopes the space becomes like a clubhouse for Hello Human members and, if it’s successful, would like to branch out to other cities where many of them live and work, like Los Angeles or Paris.

'It's going to be a space where our members can feel like it’s their space as well,' Nguyen says. 'Because in this AI-driven world, human connection is becoming so much more important. Amazing things come out of in-person meetings.'

You can visit Hello Human House at 24 Rutgers St, 1st FL, New York, NY, hellohuman.us/