Lionel Ohayon

Stacy Shoemaker Rauen: Hi, I’m here with Lionel. Lionel, thanks so much for joining us today. How are you?

Lionel Ohayon: Good Stacy, how are you?

SSR: Good, so good to see you. All right, so we always start at the beginning. Where did you grow up?

LO: Well I grew up in Toronto and I left Toronto in 1996 actually, and made my way to New York.

SSR: Were you always, what were you like as a kid? Were you creative? Did you have an early love of design or any kind of inkling to what you would become?

LO: Yeah, I was. You probably heard this story before, Stacy, I was that kid who if you bumped into my third grade teacher they’d say, “Did Lionel become an architect?” You know what I mean? I was that kid who was always like, my parents were surprised when I said architecture when I was six years old, it was always something that I thought I was going to do.

SSR: That’s awesome. Were your parents-

LO: The interesting thing is the first time I thought I might not be an architect is when I graduated architecture school.

SSR: Why’s that?

LO: My thesis advisors were like, “You really should consider doing film. Your work is very theatrical, you’re very storytelling kind of person.” A lot of my thesis work I did in film and so I really was like, I also went to a co-op school so I had worked in offices around the world. By the time I graduate architecture school I’d worked in offices like six times for four to eight months. And at that time, this is 1994, I never ever worked for an architect who was happy. I literally, every job I had I was like wow, these guys are miserable. And it affected me. You’re like, do you really want to go into this profession, which architecture school is kind of miserable, and then these people are just working too hard, complaining about not making enough money, not doing the creative work they really wanted to do. It was just this constant kind of like, that was the late ’80s into the early ’90s of the world of architecture. So you graduate and you’re kind of like, do I really want to do that?

SSR: Okay. Going back real quick, so who did you work with during the co-oping? Was there anyone that you learned a lot from or any great memory of that?

LO: I worked for, the two work terms that are the most formative were one for an architect, a very talented architect in Montreal named Dan Hanganu who, kind of like a Ricardo Bofill, a kind of sensibility about architecture. We were working in old city, Montreal was in a lot of transition, he gave me a lot of responsibility. There was a retrospective about his life and I became his kind of like his muse to get all these projects that he always wanted to get done done so that he could sort of talk about his life outside of his work exactly, but passion projects. And I worked on a lot of competitions and I learned a lot there.

The second one, which is interesting because it speaks a lot about where I am today, it was a work term I did in Paris for an architect who was a professor at the Levete School of Architecture as well. And I was working with him on writing a book and understanding the emotional reaction we have to space. So we had this little model machine with this long kind of tube with a little tiny camera on the end of it, this is 1992. And I would create sections of space and have this little plaster steam model of the person and move light around, and then we would sort of analyze the psychological impact of being in a narrow tall space or a flat kind of wide space. And that was all the kind of thinking that he was basing this book around, there was a book which is this predecessor to his book.

And anyway, so I was thinking about it just the other day, actually before I went to speak at HD because I was kind of tracked, I think I’m getting old, like I’m tracking back on my life these days and trying to understand the parts that made me become who I am today. And I think that time in the studio, you could easily trace that back to where my brain is today, the work that I’ve been doing for the last 20 years.

SSR: Yeah. And going even further back, so at six you said you wanted to be an architect. Was there anything, family, or people around you that introduced you to architecture or something that sparked that? Was it through travel or another experience?

LO: I think it had to do with, my family lived in Spain in the south of Spain. And I would go there for the summers and my uncle had, he was a developer so he’d have these amazing models with all these residential developments, and little cars, and trees. And everybody would be trying to get to the beach and I’d just be like, I want go to my uncle’s office kind of thing, you know what I mean? I just wanted to see these models and get into them. I was probably eye level with the table where the models were at, I remember that. So I know that had a strong, it’s a strong memory I have. And I just, I’ve always kind of been fascinated, I was like the cliche LEGOs, and all the kind of toys, blocks and stuff like that. So it was always of interest to me.

SSR: Okay, so you get out of architecture school and you’re like, I don’t know if I want to be an architect, maybe I should go on film, what’s next? What do you do then?

LO: Quite frankly the day I graduated architecture school my father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he died subsequently like six weeks later, and it was a really intense time. I literally finished my thesis after all that work in architecture school and this career I thought I was going for my whole life, and my father passed away I was like no, I’m going to do film. And then honestly it was like, I was like look, he would just be beside himself if I just dumped it after all this. Give it some time, try and figure it out. And then I decided that, and I say this to people all the time, the most important thing you’ll ever design is your own path. Like the path, you can’t assume that the path is laid out for you, you just got to take your steps along that kind of yellow brick road.

LO: And I said, well what did I learn? What did I see? And I was like, these guys are just not happy. Like the most important thing I got out of co-op school was I understood the pace, and the stress, and the energy, and what the reality of working in architecture. And most people who do it are doing it because that’s what you do, it’s not who you are. And so I was like, well what do you need to do? And I was always fascinated with this idea of the master builder, like where architecture just started. Like the guy who like had the vision, was the construction manager, built everything, did everything, and slowly architectures become more specialized and more and more into details and less about the actual physical making of things.

And so I said, what I think I really want to do is become a master builder. Which is like, we do all design and we do all build. And Stacy, when you and I met I built everything I designed, remember? Just like ICRAVE. We just, were like we’re here, how much money do you have? We’ll design it, we’ll build it. And for me that was like, I started that in Toronto when I was still there with my family before I moved to New York. And I was just like, you got to build it, because if you don’t build it then you can’t protect the design. And ultimately what you’re trying to is protect design, so you have to not get priced out or value engineered out of your own ideas. And that’s when I started, well there’s some steps in between there working for a Russian oligarch and whatnot and the Bonanno family in New York City, but aside from that. That’s a story for another day.

SSR: Wait, what did you do? Can’t get away that easily.

LO: Well I came to New York because a very close friend of mine in Toronto started dating a girl who’s from New York, and then they got engaged and he’s like, you got to get down here. And it turns out that he got engaged to this gentleman who essentially was an oligarch and he had all these properties and was building this house up in Great Neck and all sorts of very elaborate, extravagant projects. And Rob, who was my friend who I was doing a nightclub for in Canada was like, you got to get down, you got to get down here. I’m dealing with all this real estate and I need you to help me figure out design construction. I came to New York, obviously I’d been going through a lot with my family, my dad, da, da, da, and I just completely fell in love with New York. And I was like, I’m done. I was like, I’m not going back to Paris, I’m not going here, I’m not going there, Toronto’s over for me, I’m going to New York.

And we were working on all these incredible projects. We had our own gilding shops, and water jet machines, and stone manufacturers, and furniture manufacturers, and every kind of specialized kind of bespoke part of what you can imagine an extravagant mansion might need to get built, we had all that in-house. And I was running design and construction for him, I was probably 27, 28 years old. So the details of who I was working for all started to come together and I got pretty nervous. I was just like, I think I got to get out of here, I don’t know what comes next. And that’s when I kind of just was like, I got to just go do something else. And that led me to quickly working for a design build firm, and then learning to lay the land in New York City, I did that for about a year and a half, and then I started ICRAVE.

I was in the one bedroom apartment, I took my bed and threw it into the living room and bought a couple doors and made a desk, an L-shaped desk in the bedroom. And I just said, you got to just do your own thing. There’s a million parts to that story which are kind of interesting, but I was just like, you need to get your shit together, remember who you are, and go do what you need to do, and not let other people manufacture your reputation or what you believe. And if you can’t do that, pack your shit up and go home to Toronto. And quite frankly, as soon as I did that I just got into my stream, I just got into my power kind of thing.

SSR: So your first office, it was in the Meatpacking before the Meatpacking was the Meatpacking in New York. Talk to me about that, and then also the projects that you designed nearby. Like you helped kind of create many of the nightclubs and restaurants around that neighborhood.

LO: So we were young and we were inside this kind of post 9/11 nightclub proliferation, if you will. I think what happened was for a lot of people who don’t know, during Giuliani’s term as mayor there was this old law about dancing, like cabaret licenses. And you were not allowed to dance. And every bar and every lounge would say no dancing, you’d see signs. I mean if you were sitting at your table talking to some people and you’d start kind of shaking your shoulders, someone would come and tap you on the shoulder and actually say no dancing. It was like Footloose in New York City, like you could not dance, bizarre. After 9/11 that just was gone, no one cared, nobody wanted to hear about it, there’s bigger fish to fry. And all of a sudden all these clubs started opening up.

LO: And the first club we did was actually in the Hamptons, it was called Kabonya. And then we did Chaos, and then we did Pangaea, and then we did B’Lo, and then we did Flow, and we just did this huge run of stuff. That led us into the Meatpacking District. And then we, well we were actually building on 19th street before, and then we moved into the Meatpacking District where I partnered on a project that became the One Group, which launched the whole STK and all that stuff. So we were both designers and shareholders, that was a big part of my model going through this like, we should own stake in some of the IP that we’re creating for our clients. And so from there once we got into the Meatpacking we moved into the space above Lotus, and we just were really doing a lot of projects in that neighborhood, which is pretty exciting.

SSR: Do you think nightclub owners came to you because you were able to do the entire design build? Why do you think that was your entry in pretty much to hospitality?

LO: It’s a few things. Number one, my thesis ultimately, which was about the impact of our virtual world on our real world was manifest through a nightclub entertainment complex, so I was in nightclub. I was going to nightclubs a lot and I became friends with a lot of the people who were building these things and owned these things. And it just was like we did, Crowbar was a big part of it, Crowbar was a huge club that opened up. There’s a guy named Rob who I described earlier who got married to this woman who was in the scene, and it was like you need to call Lionel, he was actually a great promoter of ICRAVE when we got started. And then yeah, we were like look, we’ll design that, we’ll build it, we’ll get it done for you quickly. So I think that was a big piece of the puzzle.

SSR: Yeah. What was it like in those early days? How many people did you have working with you? Were you guys just-

LO: Well there was me and Siobhan, like Siobhan was the first person I called and I said, hey, I’m building this thing and you got to come on board and all that.

SSR: Because you two went to school together?

LO: We went to school together, and she’s amazing. And, we had like three or four people, Jesse was working on something early on, and we were probably like six, seven, eight people. Plus I had a construction department, we were literally like Mutt and Jeff, like the design guys, the construction guys, yelling and screaming about this, that, and the other, everything was solved in-house. A lot of the work was done 11 by 17 or by going on a site and pointing to something and changing it right there. It was very, very hands on and it was all in, it was like you’re all in. And we were working super late, we were working weekends, we were going out together, it was a real kind like startup, if you will. It was a lot of fun.

And we were really challenging ourselves to come up with big ideas. We were challenging materials, and looking at different industries, but materials was a big thing early on for me. Like fiberglasses in the boating industry and trying to figure out the force that we did in Crowbar, we actually went and found mast and cast these masts and big egg shaped kind of environments and stuff like that. So it was really a lot about because we own the construction we were able to find solutions. And we had a budget, we were like we’re going to have to go solve for this. So we learned a ton, we really learned a ton. We learned a ton about how to build, we learned to ton about building codes, we learned a ton about the process. And so we were very nimble and very capable to get people to where they wanted to go.

And from there we really realized as soon as I became a partner so early on it was all about like, does it work? Does it look cool? Cool. Does it work? Are we making money? Does this thing require 10 more staff to operate? All these questions that you don’t think about out of the gate as a designer, we are thinking about right away. How much are you going to cost to do this? What’s a process to do this type versus that? How long is it going to push the schedule? So we became super kind of all encompassing very early on, which has helped me a lot.

SSR: And also how the team worked to serve, and I remember one of our first conversations you’ve always been not only the experience, but the flow and how the room is set so that way the staff, the waitress, and waiters, and the bartenders could really do their job efficiently too.

LO: Yeah, and that plays into us doing hospitals now, like how do we think through the problem? Like that’s the problem. The problem set is for me and for what we do at ICRAVE. You’ve heard me say this before, we’re not interior designers. Now we do interior design and we’ve got really talented interior designers, but we are searching beyond those kind of parameters. And I think that’s a good thing and I think it’s a message in the conversation I had at HD is really about where are we going? What is this profession leading us to? To deliver on what clients expect from us. And there’s a whole range of possibilities of what that is, but that conversation is what we need to be having right now as an industry.

SSR: What’s your answer to it?

LO: Well I started a new company, Stacy, and I’m excited about it. We brought in some great partners to raise a bunch of capital, we’re assembling a bunch of teams together, different expertise. And we’re going to launch Journey, you’re hearing it here first because you’re probably not going to post this interview before we actually launch. But our company is called Journey, I brought in the former CEO from Frog who I think you’ve met with me, Andy Zimmerman. And also Craig Ayers who’s the COO over there, so we brought in a really high level scaling kind of professionals who understand the design industry and then understand it beyond just physical stuff. They do digital, we’re doing systems, strategy, and my vision is that really the answer for the clients that are coming to me and asking me, what do I do? What is the experience I’m looking for? How do I sort of reach people in a new way?

LO: It’s impossible for me to look them in the eye of this great space and not answer the digital part of that question, it just doesn’t feel like, the more you avoid it the more you push yourself to sort of like the outside of the real answer. Because the real answer is there’s a physical solution, there’s a digital solution, and quite frankly there’s a metaverse solution. There’s this kind of web 3.0 part of the answer that clients need to just understand. Now if we’re in the banking sector, or hospitality, or if we’re in healthcare, it’s the same thing. And so for me this evolution, this building of this new Journey company is really about understanding, what does it look like to have the company, I’ve had ICRAVE for 20 years, it’s our 20 year anniversary. Where do we go now? And how do we answer the call today?

So I’m super, super excited about the team that we’re building. We have voice AI technology, we have a full metaverse suite of products. I’m thinking you know Kathy Hackles, my chief metaverse officer. And we’re building teams in full digital, full immersive experience so that you really can look at across the whole span of what a brand engagement is with your customers, with your clients, whatever in this new brand and answer it in complete sentence. You know what I mean?

SSR: That’s amazing. And are you having to teach clients, are they coming to you for it, or is it both?

LO: Right now we’re teaching clients a lot. Not every project spans across physical, digital, and meta kind of thing, but more and more I think that’s the solution set. And I really think that AI is going to have a tremendous negative impact on the interior design business, I think you’re seeing it already. Like you can input a floor plan and you can get 35 solutions from an AI solution-based software that will then even tell you where to buy it, how much it costs, and when it can get shipped to your house, and who can install it for you, just package all those pieces together. You’re seeing it in residential, you’re certainly seeing it in office space where it’s like, it’s super easy to just get these solutions all kind of logistically solved for you.

And so I ask question like, well what do we do? What is it that we actually do when we do it well? I mean there’s a lot to be said about designing beautiful things, and I have a lot of respect for people who just focus on that and do it really, really well. But for us the search is more than that, we’re like impact, you know that. I want to try something different, I want to do something I haven’t done, and I want to really impact business solutions of design thinking. I want to know that we did something, we’re doing a sphere in Vegas for MSG, and it’s like a whole new type of entertainment being unpacked. Of us being able to participate in that solution and find out what that means and how design impacts that experience, I think is really important.

And now I’m like okay, well what do I mean by design? What are the parts? And so I’m really excited about how these different parts are going to come together, change the process, and in some ways protect us from this idea that there’ll be less work out there because AI will take 50% of work at 20%, and one day 90% of work. It won’t because as long as you’re innovating and you’re creating new ideas that’s the journey kind of mission. Like you’re stepping beyond just the kind of like here’s a set of drawings, go build it, you’re really impacting what the experience is about.

SSR: How much has this been a learning curve for you? I mean I know you’ve always been interested in tech, and researching, and thinking this way, but I mean to really master AI, and metaverse, and all the other things that are coming your way, I mean what have you done to kind of get yourself to the level where you, can go out there and do it well? I think that’s the challenge for a lot of people, it’s all out there but how do you become-

LO: Yeah, no, that’s a good question. An people in the studio will tell you that I can’t work the photocopier, so what the hell am I talking about technology? One of the great things about thinking about the future is you can just make shit up because who knows. But to actually execute and improve it, which I think we’ve done. Like we’ve said, hey, what if we introduced this technology here? How would that change outcomes? We’re doing that, we’re doing that daily.

And I think that you have to be open mind about where we’re going and you have to just look backwards a little bit in order to see forwards. And there’s a resistance, there’s a lot of resistance in our industry about things like the metaverse. Well guess what, we’ve been doing 3D renderings for years. And that’s, for lack of better term, the metaverse, it’s this immersive way to look at things. And I think what I’ve been doing a lot is you’re right, I’ve been doing a lot of learning, I’ve been doing a lot of listening, and I’ve been participating a lot, inviting people into our projects to help us see it from their point of view.

SSR: Love it. And you said that you were celebrating 20 years, this is how you’re evolving the company, looking back I mean did you ever think in 2002 that your company would become what it is today?

LO: I don’t know, it’s a very good question. I’m relatively hard on myself so part of me says, I didn’t execute as far as I thought I’d execute in 20 years. I look at the body of work that we’ve done, it’s completely mind boggling how many projects we’ve executed. Sometimes I just, I can’t believe it. It’s just like how did we do all this work? And sometimes I’m like, why are we still doing this kind of work? We shouldn’t doing this work anymore, we should be beyond this work. But there is a sort of proverb that no architect should ever do the same project more than three times. First time you try it, second time you understand your point of view, the third time you master it, and don’t ever do a bar ever again.

Well there’s part of me that’s like, I don’t have anything left to say about a bar personally, but there’s 75 people who do. That’s what we’re doing, we’re giving younger people opportunities to talk through these ideas. And right now we’re challenging what a bar is, we’re challenging everything right now. Because there’s this whole two year interlude of shit that we’ve been going through has allowed us the license to just, well what conventions need to exist anymore? Which ones can we reinvent? So that’s super exciting, I think that’s really, really cool.

SSR: What kind of conversations have you had along those lines? Like how are you pushing that idea? Like in the Sphere for instance, how are you reexamining what lounges and F&B means for a massive entertainment venue that has to morph into many things throughout the week?

LO: It’s an ongoing question. And the first question, and this is a case in point, is how will technology be used in the Sphere? Or any other project, because that’s going to largely kind of inform, well what is the experience? Why would you ever wait in line? What is that even about? And how do you kind of engage in these spaces in the way that allow you to explore the building in a way that you wouldn’t otherwise? Like if you’re in a stadium you’re not exploring it through the food offering, or the experience offering somewhere else, whereas today you can if you just leverage technology that already exists. And so if that’s not an arrow in my quiver when I’m trying to design something new, it’s not reasonable. It’s not reasonable for me to tell my client oh, I’m going to make something amazing for you and not be like, here’s the technology overlays that allow this design to unpack in a completely new way.

SSR: Yeah. Do you find the technology exists pretty well now? Are you still going out there trying to search for new ideas?

LO: We’re way behind the curve on what’s already there, that’s a good news for everybody in this world of what we do, there’s a ton of solutions out there that already exists. And people are like oh, why do you have to wait for your check in the restaurant? You don’t, but you need to bake that solution in when you hire your designer at the very beginning so that they know that’s not going to happen, and therefore I can rethink the whole sequence of events of when you arrive. Like 90% of a history of the order of operations of what we’re used to don’t need to exist anymore.

SSR: Right. But I think it is a fine line, I’m curious your thought. There is still sitting down at the bar, especially like a quote unquote mixology bar and having that interaction, and having that conversation with the bartender about what you want to drink or what you want to eat with this. So how do you balance those experiences with the technology?

LO: So to your point, the question is what is the value proposition of the experience? If you said oh, we’ve got the greatest technology, I’m going to get you in and out of dinner in New York City in 35 minutes, people are going to be like yeah, no, I don’t want that. That’s not what I want, I want to enjoy my dinner. I don’t want to be rushed out of here. So you didn’t solve for anything. And bars are a purchase where you can find a place to lean on and look around the room and see what’s going on, that’s what you do. You walk into a restaurant or a bar by yourself or nightclub by yourself, you need a perch. We design that way. We’re like okay, you just got in, where’s the perch? Where are the wallflowers hanging out and what do you do?

LO: So there’s purpose to bars that give social context to individual people and to small groups. And we think through what all the different use cases are. Girl getting picked up at a bar, is that what you want here? Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. If you do it’s one thing, if you don’t something different. You want people to have solitude and places like airports, like how many single seat opportunities do we create in airports? A lot of people travel alone. And so we’re thinking about those things in the airport and how technology, what we do with the iPads and airports, I mean it’s just like we’ve learned so much, and so many things that we’ve learned that we didn’t expect even. And the way the airports are going now I think is going to be even way more exciting.

SSR: Well it was such a simple idea, right? You sit down and you touch an iPad and food comes to you, but no one had done that before.

LO: Yeah, and kudos to Rick at OTG who leaned in, and invested across it, and made it happen. That’s another important piece that I think people need to understand, you need to build a trust with your client. You need to literally find the client. Like we’ve been frustrated on so many projects and stuff that we really wanted to change the world, and we got stymied by politics, and city BS and whatnot, and changing of mayors and stuff where we really leaned in to do something really, really big.

And we learned a lot through those projects, like cloud forest on top of Hudson Yards and whatnot. And even small projects, you can’t force your will on innovation in what we do, you can’t force your will on big ideas and you can’t swim them upstream. You can’t have an innovative idea that a facilities manager then sells to a CEO. If you’re going to make big ideas work they have to be with a partner who’s the decision maker, and that person has to be vested in the success of that big idea. And quite frankly, it’s got to be their idea. And if it’s your idea make it seem like it’s theirs, because that’s the only way it gets done.

SSR: Right. And you’ve had a lot of repeat clients, I mean I think that’s also part of your success is that like OTG management you mentioned, obviously STK started as a partnership. Do you think it is that trust, that back and forth? Or what do you think makes you and your team a good partner now with this Sphere. I mean there’s so many people that you’ve done work with for your two decades, what is that secret to a successful collaboration in your eyes?

LO: I think it’s got to do with passion. I think it’s got to do with leaning in and taking responsibility for what you believe to be true. And being an honest broker, just telling a client when you think they’re wrong without being rude and just being like look, this is what we got hired for, this is my job, this is what I’m representing for you, and here’s what we’re going. Now when we were doing the airports with Rick, Rick and I, we had a lot of trust between us. We were really building a lot of stuff all at once, the growth of OTG was just prolific. And we won a lot of competitions together and we continued to push the envelope. And there were times when he’s like stop and I was like no, your competitors are coming after you. And this is what you hired me for, and this is where we’re going.

So by the time they figured out what we did two years ago and got it built, we’re already moving on and doing other things and innovating and whatnot. And I think from my point of view, I think for me to, with Sushisamba we just did Dubai. You guys are going to see an incredible, incredible project. We have three or four other amazing projects lined up behind that. We have a client who’s fascinated with architecture, fascinated with art, and he wants something different, he wants something that he hasn’t done before, he wants something new. That’s our sweet spot. It’s like, let’s go do it different, let’s go invent it. And I think that’s, I’m really proud of that and I think that’s who we are. We want to try something that we haven’t tried before. We’re doing hospitals, I was like, how the hell did we get to hospitals?

SSR: But they brought you in because you think differently.

LO: Yeah. And they literally read an article and said, these guys do architecture where people are anxious, and what’s more anxious than the hospital? So I think that’s, and that was another time when I was like, wow, I just didn’t catch this. Like they’re seeing something in us that we’re not seeing. Like I would never have thought hey, why don’t we reach out to the hospital and show them our portfolio?

SSR: I mean even getting that call, you had to have somebody who believed in something different, right? To your point, you had to have somebody that was thinking the same way you were.

LO: Shout out to Susan Heli at MSK. She saw it and she pushed for it. And she quite frankly put herself on the line, and thank God it worked out.

SSR: And I remember you said one of the years at HD that you designed with compassion, you designed for the patients. Can you talk a little bit about that and why?

LO: Sure

SSR: Why…or how you’re rethinking how hospitals were? Not that they don’t, I don’t want to get in trouble.

LO: Look, hospital and hospitality somehow they diverged at some point and those two words meant something different. But hospice, hospital, hospitality, I mean there was like, we just felt that a hospital could be so much more. And that ultimately the challenge we brought ourselves to is can we make a hospital that’s an active participant in your cure? The hospital itself is part of you getting better. That was a very tall order. They were like, let’s try that, let’s go for that goal. And we started to really look at what it meant to be sick and be in a hospital. For me to get called from a cancer facility, I lost my father to cancer, it was a big deal, it was a big validation for me, it was a big moment for me like okay, there’s a purpose to what you do beyond what you do.

And so for us it was like okay, what makes people better if they’re sick? And we learned that people who are inspired have better outcomes. And so we said, can we create a building that inspires people? And how do you do that? How do you sort of think through the problem set and people are coming back here, the last facility we did for MSK was an infusion and radiation and chemo facility, so people were coming back over and over again for months at a time, maybe even years. We’re like, well that sounds a lot like enrolling into a program in college, you’re here over and over and over again. 

LO: And for us we were like, how do we inspire people? How do we create opportunities for learning? How do we create opportunities for engagement? How do we create opportunities for people to have choice? Would we create a world where people actually came early, left late? Where you can’t really, a lot of people are in a situation where they can’t really shop New York City, can we bring New York City to them? Does a gift shop have to have stupid balloons and stuff? I mean you’re a cancer patient but you might be heading to a dinner party, so what can I pick up on my way out here because I’ve spent so much time here? All this kind of thinking that sort of just gave control back to people and just allowed people the opportunity to invent, and create, and commune, and make choices.

And we used technology to unlock all that. We use RTLS technology, I mean you and me and whoever else don’t have to sit by a clinic door because we’re waiting for our name to be called out. You can go anywhere in this 18 story building and we’ll find you because the technology of RTLS, which is an RFID system. RTLS means real time location service, means I’ll find you on the third floor in a yoga class as opposed to it being a waiting room. So we eviscerated the whole waiting, the waiting was gone and then we can program it with stuff. Well what kind of stuff? Well there’s a lot of stuff that exists. Well where? Like you said, technology. We can implement all sorts of programming in here and we can give everybody a whole notch down on the anxiety level. And in doing that you’re changing the paradigm for what it means to be there.

And me, if I’m a loved one going with somebody else, are we thoughtful enough to give you a place to work? Because you know what, I have to bring my loved one to the hospital every two days, I still have a job, and my kids have homework to do, and all these other parts of life that still need to happen. Just think about those little moments in time and all these little parts, and then it’s this kind of empowering through understanding. And that’s kind of, that’s where we are in our work. It’s like we can empower people by understanding their needs, providing for it, and creating a context where great things can happen.

SSR: But it was such a simple idea about rethinking waiting, like how many doctor’s appointments do we go to now still and we still have to wait? And being in a hospital and just being surrounded by things that don’t feel good. And I think one thing this pandemic has taught us is how much buildings and the things around you affect how you feel. And so it’s again, just such a simple idea that you guys just rethought

LO: 100%, exactly. Let’s go back to my work term in Paris in 1992 where I was just using a little plastic spoon model of a man and examining the impact of space on your emotion. That starts to trace back to the work that we’re doing today, it really does. I’m like oh yeah, we’re still thinking through these problems. It’s cool.

SSR: What does hospitality mean to you now after all these years?

LO: I think the quality of the relationships that human beings are having today and will are more a concern for me because I have three small children tomorrow. Like what is my role in creating a world where human dialogue is paramount? Where the ability for people to be together in the real world is the fundamental practice of humanity? So that we can help each other and that we can create a world that is positive and full of light. And so for me that was one of the big things when I was like yeah, let’s do this. Let’s go build Journey because who’s going to build a metaverse if not me? And you and everybody who might listen to a podcast like this who cares about hospitality, who cares about design? That world is our world. It’s not this pretend thing that’s a fad that’s going to happen. It’s like in its simplest form it’s immersive internet, and immersive internet could be very powerful in a positive way, and it could be a devastating place if we don’t put our hands around it.

So hospitality is about human connections. I grew up in a Moroccan household, we’re all about hospitality. We are known for receiving people, and extravagant dinner parties, and amazing celebrations, and color, and laughter, and food, and sound. And I’m lucky that I had that, I grew up in a house that was about receiving people and about entertaining and whatnot. And I don’t think it’s, I think design is a very important piece of it but design in and of itself from the physical point of view is not where hospitality lives, it’s one of the supporting cast members. And that’s why the experience part is so critical.

LO: And I tell clients sometimes I can guild this place in gold for you, I’ve probably said this 1,000 times, but if you don’t know how to receive guests you can’t do this. You’re not going to be good at it. It’s not like you’ve made a bunch of money working at the bank and now you want to open a restaurant and it’s going to be awesome kind of thing. It’s like you see the people who toil in the kitchen in the front of house and actually run these things, that’s the hospitality piece of it, that’s really the front and center kind of interaction piece.

So I think hospitality has a really important piece of the puzzle of healing the world. And I get scared when I see everything getting Pinterest boarded to death, and this copycat world, and Instagram telling you this story about this other perfect world out there, and it’s these life is perfect in a snapshot. It really keeps me up at night, it really concerns me about where we’re going. So that’s the reason why I think being part of this future scaping as we like to call it at Journey, understanding what the whole world of, the panoramic kind of view of the world we’re building is really important that we get involved us, and I’m speaking to whoever’s listing, in this design world. Put our hands around it, don’t be afraid of it, let’s go grab it, and design it, and build it. Be the ones who inform how interactions happen in this world. Because if you go on there right now, if you go see the things that are being experimented right now some is good, but a lot of it’s like yeesh, could be a lot better.

SSR: For sure. All right, in sake of time we’re going to do a quick, rapid round. You ready?

LO: Yep.

SSR: You seem so excited, okay.

LO: Oh yeah, this is my general disposition.

SSR: Okay. So favorite project you’ve ever done?

LO: ICRAVE.

SSR: Okay. Project you’re most looking forward to designing? Besides Journey.

LO: That I’m not working on right now?

SSR: Or that you are working on.

LO: TSX, Sphere.

SSR: What’s TSX?

LO: TSX is an incredible project we’re working on in Times Square where we will be building both the physical incredible entertainment complex and the heart of Times Square, and at the same time developing the metaverse version of what that experience might be like.

SSR: Very cool. What project have you never designed that you still want to design?

LO: The Olympic games.

SSR: Okay, how do you stay inspired?

LO: It’s a great question lately. I would say my kids, travel, and exploring.

SSR: Travel bucket list place?

LO: I got to trip to Mongolia this summer and I’m trying to figure out how to make it work. Mongolia.

SSR: Amazing. One thing that people might not know about you?

LO: I don’t know. I’m pretty spiritual, I’m pretty into understanding the Jewish liturgy, and my origins, and what that’s all about.

SSR: What has been one of your most memorable hospitality experiences, a travel or a stay?

LO: I grew up in the world of his inventions and creations, and I think it had a big impact on me. He would throw these insane parties after Formula One in Montreal. And I think the kind of level of commitment that he would do, like whether we’re in, I once went to Brazil with him and the crew, or to his parties in Montreal, or anywhere like in Ibiza or whatever, he has this kind of like real clear understanding of hospitality and how he kind of creates these worlds, these immersive worlds for you to sort of become an active participant, to actually become the spectacle and not just sit back and be a spectator in his world. And certainly Burning Man, there’s no question about that.

SSR: Last question before the last question, as you’ve expanded over the years how have you kept the office culture you started that was all about collaboration and digging in? Have you been able to keep that or how have you been able to kind of evolve your company culture? Because I know it’s very strong.

LO: We luckily have many people who have been there for more than a decade and who are the culture. And quite frankly, I have passed the reigns on to other people to allow that to continue to evolve. And those people, the studio is like school, that’s what we built. It’s like you pin up, we still do that on Wednesdays and we try our best to give everybody an opportunity to be the voice. And we still believe that the best idea wins, it’s really not my ideas, you know what I mean? What I’ve created I hope is a platform for creatives to tell their own story and have their own voice in it. And I’m super excited when I see something I didn’t expect.

Now lately I’ve been really, I’ve found that I was yearning to be much more part of the process. Like maybe over the years I got too far away from it, and I think at some point I was like shit, I haven’t designed anything a long time. So I’m excited about 53, it’s the new restaurant at the, at the new of the MoMA, which will be opening this summer. It’s my project, I was all over it which I’m sure everyone ugh, keep him off the projects. Yeah, there’s a few projects right now that I’ve really leaned into, the Sphere, this project 53, with the Moore building in Miami, and TSX, which I’m kind of back in the studio all over. And maybe it’s because of the studio here in Miami is small like it was when we started so I’m like, let me design, I want to design a little bit. But the team’s just really talented, and really committed, and really a tremendous, tremendous alumni of super talented people. Which stay tuned this fall, we’re going to put together a big ass party, invite everybody. So it’ll be really, really great.

SSR: Can’t wait. I don’t think I’ve been to one of your parties since the roller skating one.

LO: That was such a good one, right?

SSR: That’s a good one. That’s a talent that people might not know, you’re a very good roller skater.

LO: I’m a good roller skater.

SSR: All right, well I hate to end the conversation but we always end the podcast with the title of the podcast. So what has been your greatest lesson or lessons learned along the way?

\LO: I think that this is true about life. I said something earlier which I tell people a lot, which is you have to design your own path. It’s more true today than ever. There is no, we have no idea what this profession looks like tomorrow. And I think that you have to be mindful as a creative about where you want to go, and the things that you want to understand and learn, and be part of that. And designing your own path is also just about you got to, like your integrity is critical. If you want to have staying power, if you want to be in this, if you want to make impact, and I think that’s what a lot of people want. They want to create impact, they want to see a difference because they worked on stuff.

And integrity, and being a good person, and doing the right thing, and not leaving a trail of bad relationships behind you is super important. It’s just, this is a very relationship-based business. And it’s not just a business, it’s a community. And you want have good relationships, you want to have a great track record, and you want to have your integrity in check. And that’s a big thing for us, it’s a big thing for me, like check your integrity. Are you doing what you want to do? Are you being a dick about it? Can I say dick? I don’t know if you could say dick. Are you being a bad guy about it?

SSR: Yes.

LO: And yeah, I just think you should design your own path.

SSR: Love it. Well, thank you so much for hanging out with me for the last hour or so, appreciate you taking the time. It was so good to catch up. And congrats, I’m super excited for this next chapter for you. And I can’t believe it’s been 20 years, I think we’ve known each other now for 18 of those.

LO: 20. Yeah, probably 18 of those.

SSR: Yeah.

LO: All right, well I love you and thank you for being a leader in our industry, and keep it going, girl.

SSR: Thanks, you too. Love you too. Talk to you later.