Design - The verb

The ideas behind the designs.

See what it’s like to work with me as I ask myself and the design team ‘What are the big questions that need answering?’ ‘What is the best way to approach this?’ ‘How can we challenge the brief and our own preconceptions to find new ideas?’

Finding the needs, challenges, aspirations, quirks and opportunities for each project comes first.

Creating a concept

This project started with a blank page.

Restaurant or cafe design often begins with a menu concept and/or an identity and maybe some images from the owner, chef or operator and then we start discussing and generating concept ideas. This cafe had none of those. This is how we created an original concept from scratch.

Questioning the brief

Brief: Test how a hotel could fit in an existing train station building. (Quick and simple). We decided to look beyond spatial analysis and asked what type of hotel would benefit the area and connect with the people? This led to an idea that bonds hospitality and travel - The creation of multiple hospitality venues up and down the country which could employ 1,000s of people instead of 100s.

Balancing large scale with intimacy

Large spaces can be awe inspiring but they can also lack a human touch, a feeling of warmth, comfort and connection. Different strategies and design techniques can make people feel at home in these spaces, like in this adapted Kenzo Tange building.

Understanding values and behaviour

Never has it been more important to know your guest. We were asked to create a hotel design for a niche group of guests who are curious, experimental and irrevocably collaborative. Within half an hour of discussing their individual values, likes and dislikes we identified our first crucial challenge - They wouldn’t stay in a hotel.

If we wanted to attract them we needed to reinvent what it means to be a hotel.

Adopting the users values

This project was designed for a group with strong ethics about positively impacting the world and connecting with new people. In order to follow their values so we used sustainable, local or craft companies and more importantly, we adapted the way we designed.

The authentic way to design this was to be extremely collaborative and inclusive, to invite many contributors and encourage input until the last second. If it wasn’t collaborative and ethical it wouldn’t resonate with our guests.

Using local inspiration

Not all projects are deep and meaningful. This central London hotel just needed a soft refurbishment for their guestrooms. After discussing potential themes we chose British fashion design because we wanted to show a different way guests could engage with the city and the designers.