Kenzo, Audi, Armani, Alessi, even manhole covers in New York—how do you ensure your signature style is present in your product designs?
People see me in one vernacular then think it’s all I can do. I am not just a pink blobmeister. My design language is always evolving and changing depending on the subject matter, the typology, the brand, the best solution for the specific project.
How does your product work inform your interior projects?
Many of my new product designs come from interior projects. When designing the interiors of a 300-room hotel we have the opportunity to create new products because manufacturers are guaranteed a minimum order. It is amazing to have a back catalogue of designs to pull from allowing me to source my own mirrors, lighting, beds, chairs, etc.
How do industrial and interior design influence each other?
I see the future of our aesthetic world crossing all disciplines so that design, art, fashion, food, and music, fuse together to increase our existence and bring greater pleasure to our material and immaterial lives.
Tell us about the Poli Hotel in Tel Aviv and the Prizeotel Hannover, Germany location, both opening in the fall.
For Prizeotel, I’m continuing the casual, seamless design that is simple, sensual, colorful, and high performance but created with a very low construction budget. Poli Hotel is more upscale and built in a landmarked 1930s Bauhaus building. The design is a marriage of Bauhaus and digital age, form and function, crafts and fine arts, digital and organic, simplicity and ornamentation, white and my personal accent colors.
What draws you to hotel design?
I love the larger experiential impact an interior can have on people lives. With hospitality design or public space, I know that masses of people have access to my designs, and they aren’t just looking at it, they are physically immersing themselves inside my concepts.
