DesignAgency

Stacy Shoemaker Rauen: So, Hi, I’m here with Matt, Anwar and Allen. Guys, thanks so much for joining me today.

Anwar Mekhayech: Thanks for having us.

SSR: You’re our first triple interview, so this is going to be a fun ride, but I’m excited. So, we always start at the beginning, so maybe we’ll start with you, Anwar, and then go to Matt and Allen. But where did you grow up, and did you always know you wanted to be a designer?

AM: I grew up in Canada, in Toronto. I mean, design, architecture, engineering, that whole world of creativity was at the forefront, I guess, of what I envisioned I would excel in and what interested me and where my passion was, and very much connected to hospitality, since I grew up in the restaurant business. My parents started a vegetarian Middle Eastern restaurant in Toronto and they were definitely trailblazers at the time, in the late ’70s, early ’80s, so that was my introduction to hospitality and getting to know that world and that’s where my personal passion always laid. We had some background in the Middle East with hotels, so there was a bit of family history in hotels. It’s always been my favorite thing to travel and to create spaces. So, I think, in a nutshell, I think that’s what led me towards design and ultimately, starting this company with Matt and Allen.

SSR: Did you work in the restaurant growing up?

AM: I did. In grade school, at lunch, I would race to the restaurant before all the teachers got there and then I would be behind the counter serving the teachers their lunch, and then I would race back to school and sit in their class. So, it was from dish washing, to serving food, all the way to, basically, taking over the restaurant and then, ultimately, opening my own restaurant and helping my dad open a restaurant in Paris. At one point, we had three restaurants going and over 150 staff. It’s quite something to be in the restaurant business, it’s not for the faint at heart.

SSR: No, it’s not, especially in today’s world.

AM: Yeah.

SSR: All right, Matt, let’s flip over to you. Where did you grow up, and was design or hospitality something that you fell for early on?

Matt Davis: Yeah. I grew up just outside of Toronto in Canada, small little hamlet called Mount Zion. It was four farmhouses. In the entire time I was growing up, we would always have projects going. My dad had a technical headhunting company growing up, and he would place engineers and fly in architects from all the world and find them jobs. I remember working for him when I was, I guess, in grade eight and people would be in and out every day interviewing and doing all these things. One day, he stopped everything, he was like, “Okay, guys, we’ve got to get the entire space, this place has to look amazing.” He’s like, “We have an architect coming in.” I was like, “What?”

At this young age, this celebrity nature of this architect coming in and how hyped up this was, I guess, made an impact. So, after that, everything started tailoring in to wanting to do design and I took all the courses in high school and then followed up in university, which is where I studied landscape architecture, which is where met Al. Then I worked for Anwar’s family in the restaurants, which is how I met Anwar, and it just went from there. It’s been practical, hands-on, hospitality learning, but a whole lifetime leading up to design.

SSR: Amazing. And a perfect segue way to Allen. Allen, where did you grow up, and was design always something that you loved as well?

Allen Chan: Yeah. I grew up in Toronto as well. I grew up in the west end of Toronto. I guess, from a pretty young age, I was always very much into drawing. I remember drawing, and I don’t know if you recall this Stacy, but there’s a TV show called Battlestar Galactica, back in the day, and I was a big sci-fi nerd, I guess.

MD: You’re dating yourself.

AC: I know. No kidding. At school, I would be drawing all these battle scenes from Battlestar Galactica on paper and always had a passion for drawing and art. Actually, more drawing. I think I developed my passion for art at a later age, but I always loved drawing when I was a kid and that just evolved into what should I do in high school? I had a big passion for drawing and I had a friend in high school, whose father was an architect, and so I just wanted to know what the profession was all about. It was a good friend of mine, so I knew his dad and I visited his office a few times and thought it was really cool. I saw these little models everywhere and these cool drawings on the wall, and so I decided that architecture was something that I wanted to pursue.

So, I think, at an early age, I really had a passion for it. But at the same time, my parents were in the restaurant business as well. So, Chinese restaurant in Etobicoke, which is a suburb of Toronto, and so I grew up in that industry as well, working and much like Anwar, just washing dishes when I was a kid, packing food and then eventually managing the restaurant but all summer time jobs. It was never really a full-time job for me. I cut my teeth in hospitality, I guess, you could say, at that young age.

My parents owned that restaurant for a number of years. After university, I never really went back and just kept in design and that’s where I met Matt, in university, as well, like he said. Then I went on to do my master’s in architecture at Columbia. Then after that, everything’s history and we all started a company together and here we are, 22 years later.

SSR: So, what brought you guys all together? So you met each other. Matt and Anwar, you worked together. Allen and Matt, you went to school together. So, what was that moment when you all decided, “Hey, we should open up our own thing,” and what did you want to create?

AM: I think when we started it was, for me, at least, it was very much centered around me opening my own restaurant. So, that first project of creating a restaurant in Toronto that I had a vision for, I had just raised the money for it, and then having met Matt and then us all getting together and me wanting to create a space but wanting to also be the designer. I think both of you, or one of you were working at a hospitality design firm at the time, right? I can’t remember if you both were or not. So, I knew that you guys were going to do the technical sides of the things that I didn’t know and I knew what I wanted to create and I asked Matt if he would start a company with me. I was going to be first client, in my eyes and that’s when I got introduced to Allen. I mean, I think we had maybe, what? Met once before that, if that, with you guys were working on a bar at my dad’s restaurant or something.

AC: I think we worked on Kensington Kitchen, which was your dad’s restaurant. I worked with your dad and I got used to-

AM: You guys designed this horrible bar that-

AC: Yeah, it was terrible. It was the worst thing.

MD: That was technically our first project. That was our first hospitality project.

AM: It was so ergonomically incorrect, it wasn’t even funny.

MD: That was your dad’s direction. It all starts with the client.

AM: Yeah.

AC: Yeah, good clients take good design.

AM: Matt’s still blaming the client, so, I love that.

AC: And it was like a six foot long bar or something like that and it had these terrible blue lights, the pendant lights above, if I recall correctly.

AM: I think you picked those out Allen.

AC: I think I probably did. But, yeah. No, same thing and I think that Matt and I had met in university and, I guess, Matt’s the glue, really. I mean, he brought us together. I think at the time, Matt and I had been working on…we had no idea about business and how to start a company, and we had been just doing random small projects, just MacGyver kind of things here and there after we graduated from school. We had work under the guise of a name called Prespa Studios, which we later adopted as a company, which I think was a landscape publication from the University of Toronto.

MD: It was supposed to be, yeah.

AC: It was supposed to be. And we kind of annexed it to do a couple of small competitions and stuff like that. So we were working together on small things and when I met Anwar, I was in New York at the time and I think Anwar, I think you guys came down to visit me, didn’t you?

AM: Yeah, we did. You were at Columbia and Matt basically begged me to let you into the gang.

SSR: The truth comes out.

AC: Yeah, exactly.

MD: Yeah, here we go.

AC: They came down and we started talking about it and Anwar wanted to open a restaurant and I wasn’t around because I was at school and he and Anwar had basically worked in the project. I actually didn’t have much to do with that project.

MD: You ran up a good build there.

AC: That was after it opened though. That was after it opened. That was our first branding project too. I think we designed the cards for that project and came up with a name for it. So that was our first holistic branding.

AM: 1998.

AC: Of course we never got paid because the client never paid us.

MD: You know what’s funny Al? I was thinking the actual first branding project, didn’t we do a project for Pablo with Jason for Mingle. Didn’t we brand an event at a hotel?

AC: Oh, yeah. That was funny. A good friend of ours was running these events in New York called Mingle at the Thompson.

AM: The rooftop.

AC: The rooftop at Thompson and he asked us to design all the, I guess the pamphlets for him, which he had at the time was being printed. So we did a series of pamphlets for him called Mingle and I guess, that was probably our first. Maybe you’re right Matt, maybe that was our first. So branding runs deep in our blood, Stacy.

SSR: I love it. So this first restaurant, what did you want to create Anwar? What type of restaurant was it? And what did you guys end up calling it?

AM: Well, it was a unique opportunity because it was at the University of Toronto. So it was one of the first private leases for food service at the university. And the University of Toronto is the largest university in Canada and happened to be on the same street that we already had a restaurant. And it was in this new graduate house that was designed by Morphosis Thom Mayne and a local architect as well. And so it was slated to be a landmark architectural building at UOT. And there was an RFP that went out for the space. And at that time it was a lot of fast food restaurants and chains, it attracted a lot of attention and I wanted to just create this modern bistro, this space that I had been inspired by restaurants that I had seen throughout California and my travels and my parents had always taken me to New York quite a bit. And my godfather in New York had one of the top restaurants in New York city. So it was like, I had lived a little bit in New York during school.

So it was this modern bistro, we called it SpaHa. It was because of the Soho, the two cross streets were Spadina and Harbord. So it was a play on the names of the streets. It was quite large. I mean, it was over 100 seats, had a huge patio, it had two floors. It had a bar in the basement, live music and DJs, and had this fresh West Coast healthy cuisine mixed with really unhealthy French student bistro food. So it was like my best of both worlds. At the time, again, this was pre-2000, it was the idea of bringing together these ideas and concepts that I thought would resonate with people who wanted things to be a little bit different.

And we designed it fairly modern, right? It had a kind of very open and airy West Coast, a little bit of a Japanese vibe to it, a bit mid-century modern. Lots of glass, lots of concrete, a little bit industrial but I mean really, again, I mean, what an exploration of just figuring things out. Not just the business side of running a restaurant, setting up at a restaurant, but also the fit out and design and engineering and Matt and I being on site every day.

MD: We were building it.

AM: At the end we were building it. Yeah.

MD: Budget reality sunk in and we ended up building it.

AM: We went over budget, we ran out of money, but we pulled it together and that same friend that Allen had just mentioned, Pablo, who was in New York, who was working like you said. for Pomerantz was working at Wallpaper at the time. So they got the exclusivity on the photo shoot. I didn’t even have my liquor license. I had to steal bottles from the other restaurant to bring over to this place for the photo shoot. We just put some bottles on the half-finished bar and we started taking some photos to send to Wallpaper Magazine. And of course, back then 20 years ago, I mean, the Mecca, Wallpaper Magazine, and we got a really nice shadow for this new restaurant in Toronto, Canada, and even there was not much Canadian content back then.

AC: I mean, it was also a pretty new publication and only been around for a year or two at that time, but it was the first lifestyle focused design magazine that we all loved. So it was a great shout out and a very nice tip to the efforts that were put in mostly by Anwar and Matt. Like Matt said, I primarily just ran up a tab there at the end.

SSR: Which is fine, you’re helping. Different type of help. So you finish the project, you open it. Obviously, you worked well enough together that you wanted to continue a partnership. So was it just organically, it just evolved. Or did you make a conscious decision, established DesignAgency, and move forward?

MD: Well, I mean, it did work really well. We had a lot of fun working on the first project and then the subsequent projects after that. Getting more restaurant projects, doing the branding. We did start for the first 10 years of the company, we were named Precipice Studios, which was a mouthful. No one could spell it. Dropping down the URL was really tough. We started getting some international attention. No one overseas could say it properly. But for 10 years, we did work under that title. And it was completely organic. Everything was a matter of our individual connections and then a little bit of media connections and growing some relationships in the industries. We slowly started doing more restaurants, a little bit of residential, things that we knew, like the nightclubs. We knew nightclubs really well back then so we wanted to design more nightclubs and bars.

AM: Lots of nightclubs.

MD: We were kind of experts, if you would say, yeah.

AC: It was also more a lifestyle and that, I think we all have a very entrepreneurial mentality when it comes to achieving things. And after we graduated from UFT, I think Matt, you went out to Vancouver to be a slave for some landscape company.

MD: It’s called Tree Planting.

AC: And then I actually got a job oddly enough at an interior design firm here in Toronto, who was a hospitality designer. And so I worked there for a year and then I got Matt a job there. So we worked there together for about six months. I went back to school and then I think at some point, after talking to Anwar we’re like, screw this, let’s just start our own company. We don’t know anything about the business, we don’t know anything about how to run a company, a design company, but let’s just do it because I think at that age, you’re just young and very confident. So I think we just jumped into it without really knowing what the outcome was, what the plan was.

We knew we wanted to design cool stuff and I think that we were all friends, right? And we all hung out at the same places on the weekend. And so it was just a natural fit for us. And we were all very passionate about design. So it just made sense for us to carry on. I think it probably took us a little while to even incorporate the company because we didn’t know what that was about right there. So it was also very organic in that sense.

SSR: Is there anything you wish you knew then that you know now?

AM: Oh gee!

MD: Oh my God. Could you imagine?

AM: I would sign me up. I mean, we’re still writing the business plan and we’re still figuring out our objectives and what’s the light at the end of the tunnel, if anything? I think maybe we lacked structure. It’s taken us a lot of years to figure out structure and to put objectives and policies in place but again, when you start off just as three friends and then, I can’t even remember who our first employee was or how did we even start?

And then to now fast forward where you’re getting close to 100 different people. Designers, ops teams, it’s just a different reality. I think we’ve learned a lot, but at the same time too, I’d love that exploration. I love that figuring it out side of things. I mean, it would have been good maybe to have a better accountant or a better lawyer. It took us over 10 years to figure out we need a publicist and you’ve got to do your own marketing and all these things. So I guess now if we had to look back, we could probably create a really thoughtful checklist of all the things that you should think about when you’re starting a business, but looking back, it was also fun just to figure it out and wing it.

It was also new because what was a design firm back then? In terms of hospitality design, I think there was a few in Toronto that we knew about that were getting recognition and it wasn’t exactly the same architects who did interiors, which is more of the European way. We used to go to the Yabu Pushelberg parties and they were, at least in my mind, a big mentor for me and a team that I saw as aspirational in terms of what they were doing. Again, it was really organic and it was like Allen said with Wallpaper just starting and design becoming so prominent, you felt like you were part of a movement in a way, or part of starting something new. And now I even look at how many great designers there are in Canada and there’s great schools here, there’s great design firms that I think have touched hospitality all around the world. And hopefully we’re one of them. I think we are.

AC: I mean, things have changed so much. I mean, I always call it the school of hard knocks that we went through because we never really did anything terribly bad or screwed up really badly that we don’t want to talk about it, but because of the way we approached design and still do, we did a lot of branding, a lot of strategy and a lot of creative services even back then, but the only difference is, we never really charged for it because we just thought, “Hey, we’re just going to do it because it’s part of the project. We’re going to make it cooler. We’re going to call it this, this is going to be your logo. This is your design. You’re going to have this marketing flyer.” And for sure we didn’t get paid for it.

MD: That’s the bad part that you’re talking about. We said we’d never speak about that again.

AC: That’s the bad part. It’s a learning experience, right? I mean, it all goes back to the learning experience. And I think that, it’s guided our way. I mean, now we’re definitely charging for it, sometimes, but it’s really something that, I think, like Anwar said, if we had knew all these things, we probably could’ve fast tracked our career. We could have had the projects we’re working on now probably seven, eight years ago because I think there’s something to be said about working for somebody and learning that way, but the experience and the journey that the three of us went through in terms of creating a company and learning from our errors and from colleagues and from people in design and doing things our own way, I think has crafted the spirit that defines who we are, right? Luckily enough, we haven’t done anything really bad in the past 22 years, so that’s my learning experience and takeaway from the whole thing.

MD: I think the word that you would use now, without us ever knowing, is disruptor. We were outside the industry coming in from different angles. I think a lot of the fact that we didn’t come up through another firm and then splinter off-

AC: Or study interior design.

MD: Or study interior design gave us a completely different take on everything. The reason why we did so much branding and so much talking about the bigger picture other than just interior design is because we were talking about experience. We realized that design isn’t one note, it’s the whole symphony of different things coming together. And that’s because of where we came from. We came from hospitality, we came from appreciating architecture and design. And I don’t think we would have been, I’m going to disagree with you on this one Al, I don’t think we would be where we are today had we come up the conventional route.

We really got a chance with projects that we’ll probably talk about in a bit. The Generators were a completely different vantage point on how something should be done. I don’t know if we would have came to that solution, having been fully mentored or fully cultivated in another firm first.

SSR: Well, a lot of people have one partner, right? But having multiple partners is more challenging, I would say for most. So what makes the three of you work so well together?

AM: Right. I think what it is relates a lot to values and having similar values. But what I was saying is that our friendship, I think is very much, the partnership is rooted in that friendship and that mutual respect. And I think sharing the direction and the goals and sort of the aspirations, but then also having a mutual respect in knowing how to divide and conquer and when to come together and when to rely on one another. I think there’s that that dynamic has really worked for us. And it can work sometimes when there’s three, not two.

It’s a bit democratic. So there’s a lot of voting going on, but there’s also a lot of challenging and also I think making the other one or the other two better. So just sometimes it works. There’s just a nice dynamic to get through the decision-making and you see that on projects, but also sometimes when it comes to running the business, mostly it’s the three of us holding the reins and steering the ship.

MD: Again with that shared value thing too. I think we did come into it all at the same point. All of us were like extremely excited and full of wonderment with design. But I think one of our earlier principles that we agreed to, I think also helped, which was that each project was going to be its own unique design. We were going to come to every project fresh and with new ideas, as opposed to coming up with a kit of parts that we were always going to be trying to apply. And I think that allowed us to grow as well. So as we, each individually, if we moved in one direction, there was the flexibility to move it like that with each project as well. So it gave us a lot of freedom, even though there’s the three of us working collectively together on something to give us individual freedoms within that as well.

SSR: What do you think are your each other’s strengths? Like Matt, what do you admire in Allen and Anwar and vice versa?

MD: Oh, man, this is a big question again, you saved this one for the last.

AM: That’s a good one.

MD: Got it. Again, each one of us, we do approach the projects in slightly unique way, and I do definitely appreciate that. Anwar is definitely, he’s constantly on the go, he’s constantly creating, thinking of ideas. Al’s always, he’s always taking a big holistic look at things. So the combined energy of Anwar’s phonetic energy and Al’s calm energy, I think I appreciate the collection of those two things as those worlds revolve around each other.

AC: As a Tasmanian devil shitstorm?

MD: Well, yeah. I was thinking more two planets revolving, but it’s, however you want to put it.

AC: No. I definitely appreciate Anwar’s intensity and his dedication to things he puts his mind to and the things that he feels passionate about, which I think has been, for all of us, we bring different things like Matt said and that drive and intensity has certainly helped us build the business and the company. Matt I’ve always appreciated his design input and the way he thinks about design and I think he thinks about design in a similar fashion that I do and again, it’s a very holistic approach to things. And again, if I would’ve cornered it up, Matt’s a super nice guy and always empathetic to his fellow humans. So I think that’s a huge quality that’s missing today. So, I certainly appreciate that.

AM: Well said. I appreciate being the Tasmanian devil but a fireball of energy logo.

SSR: Could be your new logo.

AM: Yeah, exactly. I think, having that kind of energy is what I then appreciate about Matt and Allen is that they help ground me in many ways and they help settle the storm sometimes. Matt have always worked super well with, and I have a big admiration for how he really gets things done and rolls up his sleeves and really is somebody that is a creator and has a great perspective on design and can achieve a lot, which I’ve always looked up to. And Allen is very pragmatic in his approach and his sensibility and very structured and again, I like that. And I think in, again, to their analysis of me, I think both those traits are really good yin to my yang in that regard. So I think there’s a lot of good outcomes that come from that. And I think that there is a great balance from those traits.

SSR: Do you guys divvy it up or is it by project? How do the three of you work?

AC: In general, I mean, our studio…I guess we worked the same way where we want to run our studios at. It’s not like we have a hospitality division or a multiunit residential division. So every team has, all kinds of different projects, different scales, different size, different timelines and for the most part for the past number of years, we work together to try to find projects. And sometimes it’s more about chemistry and personality, and how we relate to the client and the project and the location. So it’s also very democratic in the way we divvy up work from a business development standpoint. Probably, if you wanted to divide stuff into categories, I think, I’m probably, you guys correct me if I’m wrong, but I probably deal with most of the IT technology stuff in the office. Matt used to do HR, but now we hired somebody to do that because he was so terrible at it.

MD: Oh, get out of here. Sorry. Well, I apologize Stacy if the Zoom freezes up, it’s Al’s fault.

AC: And Anwar does a lot of the marketing and PR and strategy kind of work. So that’s kind of in a nutshell how, you guys can certainly add to it, but that’s how we generally manage stuff in the office. And then of course all the bigger picture strategy and business decisions we work with our ops team to decide on. So it is democratic, maybe sometimes to a fault, but that’s how we’ve been doing it for the past 22 years.

SSR: Got it. And what do you think was your big break? Right? You started off with all these restaurant projects, but if you had to look back, what do you think was the one that either put you on the map or propelled you in the direction that you wanted the company to go to? Everyone defines success differently. So what do you think that project was, or that client was, or that moment was?

MD: Locally, we had a couple of really fun projects that came out in Toronto. SpaHa got us on the footprint with Wallpaper. Lobby was one of Toronto’s first supper clubs. We weren’t even sure you were allowed to do supper clubs back in the day, the way we did it and that became like a Toronto Film Festival hotspot. All the celebrities would go there. That really was a locally, a big pop that started to give us a footprint. But then I would have to say, I’m sure you would agree that Generator was probably the biggest global bump once we did the first Generators.

AM: Yeah. I think a lot of our milestones have been relationship driven and the people that we’ve met along the way. So Generator was 2007, I think, when I met Josh Wyatt and then that was the start of that journey. Definitely on an international level because of what he was creating and what he was starting in London and just the footprint that we were trying to achieve with him and going across Europe and creating a brand and trying to disrupt that whole part of the industry. But every milestone that I think we’ve had has somehow related to working either on creating a brand or working with somebody that’s iconic and has a great brand. And when we started working on the Shangri-La hotel here in Toronto and then we’re introduced to Nick Jones with Soho House and started working with him and then introduced to David Chang and started working with David Chang and Momofuku.

I don’t know if that’s normal, but Momofuku, we ended up working with his group and with him for almost a decade, doing all his high-end restaurants. When we started thinking about Generator, it was like Airbnb, Uber, all these things were being founded back then. And it was this whole sharing economy and this whole, what is a hostel? What is a boutique hotel? How do you bring hospitality into a concept to really ground it and make it give a purpose and attract different demographics?

It was just an explosion of brands and then membership clubs with Soho House and then The Hoxton. And it’s just layers and layers of all this stuff happening over the past 15 years. And then I think we rode our own individual waves as DesignAgency, attaching ourselves to different clients and learning how what they were doing and how we could participate in that conversation, how we could make things better, how we could design things and I think people loved working with us also because of what Matt was saying about how we didn’t have a style. It wasn’t prescribed that you were going to get X, Y, or Z when you worked with us. It’s like we really value the journey and the exploration of design and we wanted to really have an open mind as to, let’s create something together and it could look like anything.

It didn’t need to look like a DesignAgency project. It didn’t have to have our stamp or our style on it because we didn’t even add a style or a stamp. Good design is good business has always been our mantra. And we teach our designers to respect the dollar, respect the brand, respect the purpose. We love the aesthetics of design and we love the art of design, but we really hammer home that we’re part of a bigger plan, we’re part of a business plan. It’s design doesn’t create everything. It’s just one of the pieces between the staff, the culture, the music, the marketing, it’s so many different things. So I think that the whole Generator journey, and back to your question about milestones, it was really working with some of those iconic brands developing some of those iconic brands, working with some of those visionaries and leaders, meeting with some of them, watching what they were doing and trying to attach ourselves to great clients. I mean, Matt mentioned that before, we’re only as good as our clients and that’s something that we’ve always held true.

AC: I mean, it’s funny though just to see where we started. We started with Generator and David Chang and then fast forward, 10 years and we had always talked about the luxury market and doing work in that segment and we had a lot and we had a lot of hurdles. I mean, we were known for, at the time, we were known for doing a lot of lifestyle and the Generator work and our FMB stuff. And we had some brands tell us, you guys are great at doing lifestyle, but you can’t give lifestyle and luxury at the same time, it’ll just never work. And so we worked really hard to change that perception of us and I think the value we bring is that we can do all different types of segments from the micro hotels, to the lifestyle, to luxury. So really, what’s great is that our office and our studio know how to do all that work.

And it’s partially because we designed it that way. We wanted to make sure that we could bring things like luxury into segments like Generator that never had luxury before, and that the hostel industry and then brings some of our learnings from lifestyle into the luxury sector. So I think, for us, it was really interesting to see how we could get into different segments in a way that even though there were people that said that we can do it, I feel that one of the things that we just never gave up and now we’re doing work with Ritz, St. Regis, the Pendry brands. We’re doing also a lot of resort work. So it’s an interesting kind of segue to see where we were at 10 years ago and to see where we’re at now.

SSR: So many questions out of this. First, let’s start with Generators. So for those listening, that might not know it was a hostel brand that finally put design forward with you all helping to lead the charge. When you first met Josh Wyatt Patron Capital, who was leading it back then, is now with NeueHouse, were you surprised that it was such an underserved market? Because I think what you’re touching on is really important is that from when you guys started to now, design has become more accessible, right? No one would have thought to put design into a hostel, at least the ones I stayed in when I backpacked, back in the day. But what was that process like when you’re handed or first talked about this brand? Were you surprised that it was such a blank slate or were you excited? Can you go back to those first moments in how you approached that project and then we can get to some of the other projects you mentioned.

AM: Again, going back to 2007 and Generator and Josh Wyatt’s idea of this white space within again, this sharing economy and the traditional hostel model and looking at boutique lifestyle hotels and everything being design-led. We were basically, trying to co-invent and create a look and figure out what was important in that realm of how do you bring design to that segment of the market. And yes, I was shocked at how there was a stereotype for operations and design. There was just a traditional, when I went backpacking in Europe, you’re either staying at a nun’s convent or you were maybe in somebody’s… If you were in Portugal, you were staying in somebody’s house or a hostel was, you were, I forget what we would do. We would chain our backpack to our leg, or to our bed, or whether you had an overnight on a train when you had a train pass to go across Europe. And this was blank slate, take the best of everything that was happening in hospitality, figure out what was important.

And the other thing is it was the early stages. So even boutique hotels and the expression of a brand in the boutique hotel world, this was all new. We came up with this slogan for Generator, urban design-led hostels and design-led is something now that I feel is so overused. Everything’s design-led. But then when we were thinking about it in 2008, 2009, we were talking with Josh. I was like, “Hey, we’re going to go to the best urban centers. We’re going to find up and coming areas. It’s not going to be a boutique, it’s not going to be small, we’re going to do this at scale. They’re going to give us a budget.” And they were super trusting with us, we formed an immediate bond with our client and you really trusted us. And we would concept it together with him, we would program it together with him and his team. We started with the infrastructure of an existing hostel company that he bought. So there was some heart and soul, there was great people at Generator and we just built from there outwards. And we also went at turbo lightning speed. It was like, go.

It was really interesting to see what kind of an impact, without even knowing that we were going to have that kind of impact, then everything fell into place after. Then it was like, “Oh my God, we have the best buildings, we have the best design, we’re going to get the best photographer.” And then it was like, people are actually latching onto this and their ADR was going up. And we were inventing the programming of how people should share spaces and how they should cohabitate and what the check-in process was. And I feel like a lot of those conversations were not happening at the time, but we were unraveling all of them and we were relating it all back to design and it was all about the experience, it was all about the guest journey, it was all about the touch points. And we layered in the brand.

We helped with a lot of the branding work. We were always there, we were their true creative partner for over a decade. And I think, a lot of designers maybe don’t even ever have that opportunity to do something like that. And I think we were really fortunate to be able to create something like that and to help build it into something. It was really, truly unique.

SSR: Well that, and also then Momofuku. I mean, you got the chance twice with two pretty amazing brands to evolve. I mean, to work with somebody like David Chang and his team, what do you think you all brought to the table that continued that successful collaboration with David and how did you take what Momofuku was and help, as you said, co-create and evolve it over the years?

AM: Yeah. Momofuku and Allen, I’ll let you jump in here too, but, Momofuku was again, yeah, you’re right. Maybe it happens twice or three times, or I don’t know but it’s almost too good to be true. And you don’t plan these things. It’s their super scrappy company, David Chang, wicked young team, inventing things as they go. Restaurant designer, why do we need a restaurant designer? I designed this shit myself. This is my vision. I create a noodle bar. I want to focus on the food, I want to focus on my brand, but then all of a sudden it’s like, he’s partnering with a Canadian company, a developer, he’s putting in this four-story restaurant in another country and you need a design partner, we really become the partners off the brand.

To that degree, we just figured it out. We didn’t over-design it. I think that’s where our humbleness in a way plays in is that, you can often smother a brand through design in ways. I think we were very exploratory, we’re good listeners, we evolved it with him and his team. And he really trusts his people too. And he had great people working for him. So it was like, okay, I want these things in these places and what I really care about is the food and how things are going to operate. You guys make sure that the design is on point, but don’t fuck it up, kind of thing. And that was truly to the extent of what the direction is that we would get from him.

And there was a lot of clients that give you a lot of feedback and are super involved, is a lot of pressure in one way. But I find it even more intimidating when you have somebody who gives you, no feedback, does not collaborate at all and just literally comes in two weeks before opening. I mean, obviously you’d be present throughout, but it’s like, and you better have not screwed up because it’s like, go time. He’s developing his menu and there’s people lined up to come in. So we just organically formed this, we started to figure out what the ecstatic of Momofukus and eventually Majordomo could be. These different brands and then there was all the sub-brands and we were just easy to work with, always there for him, really like a partnership. And then it just evolved from Toronto to New York to LA to Vegas. And it became a really great relationship.

AC: I mean, it was fortuitous because if you backtrack a little bit to how we got involved in the project. We were doing some work for Westbank developments who owns the Shangri-La property. And didn’t we suggest the Momofuku to Westbank?

AM: To Renata? Yeah.

AC: To Renata. And I think they brought it forward. And, quite honestly, I think at the time, I mean, I don’t even think David and his team understood the magnitude of where they were going to take that brand and really to reiterate what Anwar said, I think it was just about building trust and he kind of had an aesthetic, which is a non-aesthetic at the time. So we took that and ran with it and made it all about the food and the presentation and having experience with the restaurants and operations in our previous lives, we really understood how operations could affect the overall delivery and presentation of the food. So we concentrated on the back of house and then came out from there.

So everything revolved around operations and how David wanted to present the food and what the food was all about. So again, not over-designing, I think was a big thing and listening to the client and building that trust which translated into all these projects that rolled over year after year because there was that familiarity and trust. Even though I think probably David was, he was so busy at the time when we were doing all these restaurants. He would come in very sparingly and just give his two cents, but it was less about design and more about operations and how he wanted the place to function. So in a lot of ways we were just designing to accommodate the operational aspect of it.

SSR: And Allen, I love what you said that you guys proved that you could do both hostels and then luxury. And you guys are doing some really exciting projects. What are you looking forward to in terms of, this is to everyone. But, what are you looking forward to? What’s next? What’s a project on the boards that really might define where you guys are headed as a firm, or just in terms of what’s coming next in terms of the industry?

AC: Yeah. I mean-

MD: That’s a loaded question.

AC: That is a loaded question.

MD: Trying to put us in a little box Al, be careful.

AC: No, there’s lots of good projects.

SSR: No boxes.

AC: There’s lots of great projects that we can’t talk about right now Stacy. No, no. I think really my personal goal is, we’ve worked with all the brands, all the big brands, small independence. So, my personal goal would be to find, those really great clients that can really push the envelope on redefining what hospitality could mean. And especially now with everything that’s happened in the past eight, nine months, that’s a bigger challenge, right? So having those visionary clients that can really push hospitality forward, especially in a new world that we’re going to be hopefully entering in the new year, I think is something that I would like to do more of and try to find those clients.

I mean, we have some clients that are amazing clients and we also have some amazing clients who are more about multiunit residential work, which we’ve been doing a lot of in the past eight, nine months. And again, we’re trying to redefine that a little bit as well. Although the hospitality sector for us has been more interesting to plan because there’s more innovation in that sector. So for me, it would be trying to find those really cool clients and really fostering those relationships. I mean, like what we did with, Generator and David Chang and trying to find that next, really revolutionary, innovative client, that’s going to make something impactful and different in the world. So I don’t know. I mean, we also have a lot of great projects we can talk to you about, but I think, as a goal for 2021 and 2022, I think that would be good goal to have.

AM: I think adding to the part about luxury. We’ve set our sights on that and we still have a ways to go. There’s so many great projects out there and great brands to work with and Allen mentioned a few and some of the ones he didn’t mention even Four Seasons and Montage. We’re working Accor, working on Andaz. And so the challenge almost feels the same. A lot of those brands are also thinking about the future. And also maybe looking a little bit outside of the comfort zone, which, I think opens the door to firms like us who are going to bring experiences in from different places and who are going to maybe take a slightly different approach, because again, whether it’s the pandemic or whether it’s what is new luxury? I’m very interested in where luxury will go, where travel will go.

SSR: I mean, we just covered that one project in that Venus Williams featured in the guest editor of the IRTH, which I think is super interesting. I don’t know if you can want to talk a little bit about it, but I do think, looking past COVID and where the industry was headed even pre-COVID, it speaks a lot to what I think personally, and I think the industry thinks too, where travel is headed.

MD: I mean, projects like that are great ways to take all of our learnings and then unravel it and re-piece it together in ways to explore how hospitality might change. So this has been a really interesting development for the last four years as we’re looking at a specific site for this particular hotel and really digging into the nuances of what it means to be a guest to not just a location, but also a guest to a piece of land or a site or a specific landscape. What it means to be immersed in an experience. In this case, it’s a landscape driven experience. So what’s the difference between just being there and being present or being immersed? How do you use this kind of experience to be, again, slightly bigger than just… It’s transformative on multiple levels. You’re there as an escape but it’s also, hopefully you’re learning and taking stuff away.

The IRTH Landscape Hotel. It’s been a really interesting journey. We’re looking at it again, very much partnering with the group to see if there’s other locations in other areas where the concept naturally evolves to as well. Design Hotels has been working really closely with us. It’s great to have a brand partner engaged in an exploration and digging up a new version of hospitality, as opposed to just imparting pre-known wisdom. So really following through like, what is this journey going to be for the future traveler?

SSR: So speaking of COVID, it’s the elephant in the room with a lot of things. How has it changed you all as leaders? And what have been some of the takeaways from the last nine months in terms of how you run a business and/or what you think will matter more moving forward?

MD: I think this whole experience, I mean, we had a really… Although we have footprint all over the world, we’ve got a Barcelona studio, a Los Angeles, DC and Toronto. We did have a very close group. I mean, we were expanding, we were growing, but we had been doing lots of efforts over the years to really maintain the kind of boutique nature of what our firm was. In March and April, when this really came to roost and everything started constricting, our team all bonded together and we essentially made it through without having to really furlough that many people, almost next to none, but the family, all compacted down and we all shared the load and really worked through it and I think it bonded us together even more so than heading into this before.

There was a lot of effort that went into thinking about how systems might change, not just what the designs were producing, but how can we communicate better? How can our teams collaborate virtually? How can they share experiences in this new sense? How can we encourage them to stay active? And a lot of training, a lot of mentoring, a lot of Zoom and FaceTime calls just to really keep everyone moving forward and positive. But I think it really did. It was a big test. I mean, guys, it’s been a big heavy year. I’m looking forward to a little bit of a lighter year, hopefully next year.

AC: I mean, it was obviously a new experience for everyone. I mean, we made a decisive decision and for sure, I mean, the Canadian government certainly helped a lot. I mean, we have some really great subsidies here that helped us whether through some of the tougher months in the past eight months. It’s funny because this pandemic has actually forced us to communicate more. I think from a leadership standpoint, we really have been able to touch the everyday lives of our teams more often, which is, interesting because before we were probably never in the office and we didn’t communicate as much and we didn’t maybe find the value in, daily communications or weekly communications. But because everyone’s working remotely and no one’s in the office anymore for the time being, it’s been really important for us to communicate with our teams what’s happening, what we’re doing. And so I think as leaders, I’ve taken a lot away from that and even as partners, we talk way more now than we have before in the past.

MD: You seem so happy about that Al. Look at that look. You’re smiling, you look so happy when you talk like that.

AC: No, but to Matt’s point. It’s like we have a weekly call, a Monday morning call every week, and then we also communicate throughout the week as well. So before in the past, it was impossible for the three of us to be in a room together because we just didn’t have the schedule or the time, but now we’re finding, we’re making the time to communicate. And I think from an overall standpoint, it’s really helped everyone in our office have a better understanding of where our design agency sits in the world and what our purpose is and what we’re trying to achieve. Because we have been doing a lot to try to weather this storm.

And it’s funny, we’ve been having our year-end reviews this past month and a half and people have been saying that, our communication and our empathy and what we’re trying to do to weather this storm as a family has been great. And everyone’s very appreciative. So I think that goes a long way in my mind to say that we’ve been trying as hard as we can to keep the company together and everyone working and everyone being creative. So that’s a few big takeaways from me.

SSR: Anwar, you were on a webinar for me in March or April, April, May? It seems so long ago, but it seems like yesterday at the same time. You said something that really resonated with me that I’ve stolen a couple of times, so thank you. Along the way. I think it speaks loudly to how you guys grew up in this business or your projects for the last 22 years, but that we went from the shared economy to the safe economy and that people had to start thinking about how to first get people back and then to bring the experience, even make it more meaningful post COVID. Do you still feel somewhat of the same six months later, eight months later, or what do you think will continue? Because I know there’s a lot of things that had to happen immediately for COVID and then, shorter term and then longer term, but what do you think will stick around or that will be a new wave after COVID?

AM: I mean, in a way it is still going to be very much about safety, but I think the slowness of everything, the slowing down and this new perspective on everything I think is what’s going to resonate with everybody to some degree. And I say that with a heavy heart, because I do think that there is a lot of struggle and a lot of hardship that has happened. And I think it will still continue to happen because of this situation. But when I look at our industry and from business and when I try and be optimistic, I’m seeing things being more purposeful and I’m hoping that efficiencies and a new perspective on how to still have purpose and still be effective, can be done in a much slower way, smaller footprint or less of a footprint in a way when you want to think about sustainability, when you think about our industry and you think about not saying that travel should go away, but just everything being a lot more meaningful, I think that’s going to resonate through hospitality, through the work environment, through the process of design.

Again, I think it’s still to be defined how people structure the processes, whether it’s from the business side or whether it’s from the client side or whether it’s from the media side. But I think there is going to be a shift of priorities. And I think those priorities stem from people just thinking, “Hey, life is short and I don’t know what tomorrow’s going to bring.” And unfortunately not everybody is as fortunate as some others and it’s very diverse and very fluid, a world that we live in. So I think that will have an impact on how we get things done and how people want things to get done.

SSR: Very well said. One quick question, we’ve got our last question, a lightning round. What inspires you or how do you find inspiration or what motivates you, especially still in lockdown, but just in general to get up and do what you do every day?

MD: Other than your news releases and HDX posts and stuff like that.

SSR: Yes. Except for everything that all of our content that we put out, but besides that, besides seeing my face probably way too much. What gets you up each day?

MD: I think Anwar you hit it perfectly, I think purpose. I think discovering and thinking about what the new things will be, and the purpose of design, the entire studio itself and coming through things. I think every morning you want to reach out and do that. I think what’s next, for me, that’s always been the next, what’s coming up next? This whole in this valley that we’re in right now, and everyone’s pulled back and is rethinking things. I’m really excited for what’s going to be coming in the next wave of hospitality. What it’s going to look like. I mean, as bad as this has been, you see a positive horizon and that for me is really exciting.

AC: I mean, I think it’s always been the same for me. The thing that gets me motivated and wanting to keep on doing what I’m doing is, optimism that design can make a difference. I mean, it’s been and even personally for myself for the last few years. Even though we always try to push the envelope, but I feel that design hasn’t really evolved that much in the past little while. So I think the optimism that I have that design can always change and something new can happen consistently is what makes me get out of bed and want to come to my small office now and try to make that happen. I mean, I think without that, I would probably just retire and sit in a beach all day. Because I think quite honestly, I think, it’s if design is not aspirational and you don’t think it can make a difference, then to me, there’s no point in doing this.

SSR: All right. Well, I hate to end this conversation but we always end the podcast with the title of the podcast, What I’ve Learned. What has been, and it can be pre-COVID too, what has been your greatest lesson learned along the way, either from someone or through something, what has that been?

AM: My five-year-old son and just thinking about him and what his future is going to be in the world, what the world might be about and where we want to spend our time. I think what resonates for me has always been around, is being creative and having fun with whatever it is that you’re doing. And if it’s not fun, I feel like something should pivot or you should try and make what you’re doing more fun. I love travel, I miss travel. It’s a big part of what we do, it’s a big part of what I do. But I think there’s, again, if you can channel good energy and surround yourself with good people that want to go on that journey and have fun and that’s the underlying, not main reason to be, but I think people lose sight of that. And I think if you have a lot of that in your daily life and in your work, then it pays itself back.

MD: I mean, we always tell our teams and our colleagues to really keep your eyes open, everything’s a learning experience. So when you’re dining at a restaurant, don’t just look at the table or the decor, but really feel what the room feels like, experience being there and take all those learnings and travel. Anwar is absolutely right. Pre-COVID was one of the best ways you could do that. You could go and experience things, learn, and it’s about learning and taking all this information in, and then being able to use that information in a way that makes constructive spaces, really layers into some of the positive spaces that we make. So for me, it’s all about continual learning.

SSR: Allen?

AC: People always used to tell me, “Don’t do business with your friends.”

SSR: How’s that going?

AC: I think that’s a lesson learned. So I think it’s obviously-

MD: You bastard. Nice finish. And drop the mic.

AM: You’re fired.

AC: I think I definitely learned that that’s not true and obviously our relationship in the past 22 years has proven that so, for sure I’m proud of what we’ve achieved and our friendship over the past 22 years, and looking forward to maybe not that many more years, but exploring the rest of our careers together and seeing where it takes us.

SSR: Thank you guys so much for taking this time to chat with me. As I said, I could continue to chat with you guys forever, but in sake of time, I will end it here, but always been your biggest fan. So thank you for taking the time to chat with me today.

AC: Thanks Stacy.

MD: Thanks Stacy.