Hospitality Design magazine is honored to announce its 2021 Hotelier of the Year and Design Firm of the Year accolades as part of the 17th annual HD Awards. This year’s awards ceremony provides an opportunity to honor, celebrate, and recognize the remarkable work achieved by people who continue to make the hospitality industry great.
Ave Bradley and Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants have been named this year’s Hotelier of the Year. As creative director and global senior vice president of design, Bradley has spent the last 12 years evolving the Kimpton personality while staying true to founder Bill Kimpton’s original vision for a portfolio of distinctive hotels. With 70 hotels and 73 restaurants in 49 cities spanning North America, Europe, and Asia, Kimpton has grown exponentially from its West Coast roots, propelled by InterContinental Hotel Group’s (IHG) acquisition of the brand in 2015. A key tenet of the brand is partnering with design firms with a singular vision, including the likes of Neri&Hu on the Kimpton Da An Hotel in Taipei and Matthew Goodrich on the Kimpton Sylvan Hotel in Atlanta. In 2020 alone, the brand debuted 11 new hotels with plans to open an additional seven in 2021. “We’re not a brand with a single aesthetic thread,” Bradley says, “which gives us the opportunity to be thoughtful about each project we take on.”
AvroKO has been recognized as the Design Firm of the Year. For the past two decades, the firm’s four principals William Harris, Kristina O’Neal, Adam Farmerie, and Greg Bradshaw have been responsible for reimagining hospitality design. Indeed, they’re still ambitious as ever with 142 employees across studios in New York, San Francisco, London, and Bangkok. They’ve also expanded their scope of work with the launch of creative agency Brand Bureau; Goodshop Manufacturies, a custom furniture and lighting hub; and AvroKO Hospitality Group, which operates the restaurants and bars owned by the firm. They are also behind Hospitable Bridge, an accelerator studio established with Brand Bureau to help BIPOC and AAPI women entrepreneurs push their business ahead by putting money and mentorship behind ideas that will improve the hospitality world.
The 2021 Project and Product winners were announced on September 21st during the 17th annual HD Awards ceremony held at Cipriani South Street in New York.
More from HD:
How Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants Is Evolving Its Legacy
AvroKO Celebrates Two Decades of Bold Hospitable Thinking
Instagram Live: Ave Bradley
