The collection consists of clippings, correspondence, photographic materials, plans, and student work documenting the education and interior design career of Melvin Dwork.

Personal materials include family correspondence and photographs, in addition to certficates from the U.S. Navy and a set of sketches accompanied by an Edna St. Vincent Millay poem.

Professional work is divided between project-specific documentation and general publicity. Projects encompass commercial and residential interiors in addition to museum and gallery exhibitions and show houses. Commercial projects include the Aetna Life Insurance's executive offices in Hartford, Connecticut and the Shearson Lehman Hutton executive dining room in New York. Residential projects include properties belonging to Gene Moore of Tiffany & Company, Robert Sarnoff and Anna Moffo, film director Milos Forman, and the choreographer John Butler. Also present are materials about Dwork's own Manhattan apartments and offices, as well as vacation homes on Fire Island and Shelter Island. Approximately a hundred stereo slides of commercial and residential projects and a working stereo slide viewer are included in this series.

Most projects featured in the collection are located in Manhattan, Long Island, Florida, and Dwork's birthplace of Kansas City, Missouri. A number of projects are located in the Village of Kings Point, part of Great Neck, Long Island. Files may contain magazine and newspaper clippings about specific projects, negatives, photographs, slides, and transparencies. Some files only contain professionally photographed images of finished projects, many by Jaime Ardiles-Arce and Peter Vitale. The bulk of the projects date from 1970 onwards, following Dwork's departure from Yale R. Burge Associates, although substantial documentation for certain clients, such as Dwork's long relationship with Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Cohen, is present. The collection is noteworthy for documenting how Dwork integrated his clients' art collections into commercial and residential spaces, as well as showing how modern works of art have been privately displayed. Pieces by American Abstract Impressionist Joseph Glasco can be seen throughout the files documenting Dwork's own residences.

Publicity includes advertisements for Dwork's firms, clippings featuring profiles and interviews with Dwork, and other materials that do not pertain to a particular identified project. It also includes materials relating to Dwork's induction into the Interior Design Hall of Fame.

Student work consists of drawings, renderings, and sketchbooks created during high school and college courses at the Kansas City Art Institute and Parsons School of Design. It also includes report cards, awards, and correspondence from Van Day Truex, who was president of Parsons from 1942 until 1952. Much of the student design work is undated and unlabeled. Some items feature the penciled notation "KC" indicating they were executed in Kansas City, before Dwork moved to New York to attend Parsons School of Design. Drawings and renderings are executed in ink, pencil, and watercolor, and feature interiors, furniture, and decorative elements.

Following Dwork's death in 2016, the executor of his estate identified design records in Dwork's office for transfer to the New School Archives. These primarily consist of furniture design sketches, plans, and photographs. Other materials transferred at this time include two original renderings of interiors by J. Hyde Crawford and photographs of Melvin Dwork with James Maguire, Baron Philippe de Rothschild, and as a young boy. These items decorated the walls of Dwork's office area.