Graham Downes

Published: August 15, 2014

Hotel I love for its design
Delano, South Beach-it’s classic, grand, graceful, dramatic, playful, soulful…memorable and enduring

Dream project
My own hotel brand: UrbanSafari

Guilty pleasure
The usual…and I don’t feel guilty about any

Favorite destination
London-the design center of the planet

Wish I had designed
Amangiri, Utah

Perfect day
Summer weekend on my verandah under a hundred-year-old wisteria, with The New York Times, a stack of design journals, pot of coffee, and my dog beside me

Graham Downes

Principal
Graham Downes Architecture
San Diego
www.grahamdownesarchitecture.com


Recently completed projects
Palatine apartment complex, San Diego; Blue Hound restaurant, Phoenix; and many retail stores for national chains

Projects on the boards
Hard Rock Hotel, Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico; Riviera Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas; the Lakehouse Resort, San Marcos, California; MandarinHaus, Playboy Lounge (pictured below), and two harbor-side restaurants, San Diego; and a ski/skate/surf entertainment complex (with artificial mountain slope) in Southern California

Greatest accomplishment
Building and maintaining a
loyal, very talented, and extremely hardworking design team
Outside the office, you can find me
In my studio at home, doing the same


Books on my nightstand
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, 1964 Edition

Cities to watch
Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town

Travel wish

A remote, quiet, adventure destination, without internet acess

If I wasn’t a designer, I would be…
The front man, lead singer, and guitarist in a rock band

iPhone or Blackberry
BlackBerry (I know, but I am super flash on a tactile keypad)

I can always watch
HBO on Sunday nights