Joyce Wang, Joyce Wang Studio

Stacy Shoemaker Rauen: Hi, I’m here with Joyce Wang. Joyce, thanks so much for joining us today.

Joyce Wang: Thanks for having me, Stacy. It’s nice to be here.

SSR: I know. It’s so good to hear your voice. How are you doing? How are you doing amidst COVID and getting back to work?

JW: It’s been really nice, actually. Up and downs, I would say. Crazy, but crazy good. I’ve been in Hong Kong most of the time. As you know, we’ve had it pretty good here. People have been very cautious. Although, we’ve just had a spike recently, which has meant going back to lockdown mode a bit more.

SSR: How’s work been? Has it continued? Have you seen some projects put on hold? What’s been the fluctuation of your business lately?

JW: It’s been mixed for us. So, recently, there’s an influx of RFPs and new business opportunities coming in. Two weeks prior to that, it was very quiet and just isolating Hong Kong itself as a project location we’ve had next to no work coming out of Hong Kong because of the protests, which has been really sad being that we’re based here in Hong Kong.

London is doing really well. Luckily, the biggest projects that we’re working on, they’re three to five years out. They’re new-build hotels. So, in many ways, the funding for those have already been secured, and we can continue working on those. There’s been a couple of unfortunate setbacks with clients who are either building hotels or restaurants out of their own pockets, and that’s meant slowing those down.

SSR: Well, let’s turn to you, and we can get to your firm, and your projects in a little bit. So, tell us a little bit about your background. Did you always know you wanted to be a designer? Was it something from an early age you knew, or was it something you discovered?

JW: An interior designer, no, I never knew. I think I’d always loved math, and physics, and I always loved drawing. architecture was the best combination of being able to study both. I think interior design really fell on my lap when I started working at Norman Foster’s. I found myself detailing staircase packages, luggage belts in airports, and I was yearning to work with materials. And I remember going into the material library and it was Fifty Shades of Grey. And I thought, I think I want to play with color, I want to look at materials with different textures. So, that was how it became a bit more obvious.

SSR: But before we get to Foster, where did you grow up? Did you grow up in Hong Kong?

JW: Yes. I grew up in Hong Kong. My parents, they’re still here. I was educated in the UK, and then in the US, but yeah, I’ve spent most of my life in Hong Kong.

SSR: And did you have any early memories of design. Did anyone in your family influence you at all as you grew up to head into that line of work?

JW: I remember one of my first memories of knowing what an architect or what that word even meant was when I went with my mom to the bank. I was just following her up. I remember going up these escalators, and it was actually in one of Foster’s buildings in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Building, which is a beautiful building. And there are these escalators that one going up, one coming down, it cuts through this glass belly of a building and underneath, it’s a public square. I remember going up and thinking, ‘Oh, wow.’ I remember feeling something from it, and I couldn’t, at that time, put my finger on it. But looking back, I felt like a million dollars going in this incredible building. My mom was starting a bank account for me. And even though it was not a huge amount of money, it was incredible how big I felt in that space and how important it made me feel. And I asked my mom, I was like, ‘Who makes these buildings?’ And she was like, ‘Architects.’ And that’s when I thought, ‘I think I want to be one of those.’

SSR: And very serendipitous, that was one of Foster’s projects.

JW: Yes.

SSR: So, what led you leave Hong Kong, and go to school in the UK, and in the States, and where did you go?

JW: I think going to the UK, that’s a traditional Hong Kong family path to take, I guess. It was the thing that my brother did, my cousin’s, and so I followed. And then, going into going to the U.S. My father was educated in the U.S., and so was my mom, actually. So, they both felt it was a system that would be probably beneficial for us. At the time, I applied to both UK and U.S. schools, and I ended up going to MIT. And I knew that they had an architecture program at the same time, I didn’t want to cut short, the opportunity of maybe studying physics or math. So, that was always in the cards.

SSR: And so, you ended up living in quite a few places. Hong Kong, the UK, Boston for MIT. How is experiencing all these different areas, and countries influenced your work today?

JW: I think it’s made me commit to not having a style per se, but more of a discipline, and wanting to understand different cultures because of how enriching those experiences can be, just living in these different places. I lived in LA for a couple years after graduating from the Royal College in London. I remember on the flight back home to Hong Kong, I thought myself I’ve lived in LA for two years, and I have learned so much from this experience. I don’t ever want to forget and lose that. It opened up so much more in terms of my understanding of design aesthetics, my understanding of hospitality, what materials meant, how was different to have meetings even in LA. The culture that a place can bring, and using that to enrich my own design palette, that’s something that I think I’ll always want to have.

SSR: Yeah. And was your first job out of college with Lord Norman Foster, or did you have another job first before going to him?

JW: Foster was my first job. And I worked for him in the London studio. That was just before I went to the RCA, the Royal College, and I worked on three different airports while I was there.

SSR: And what was it like working with him? What did you learn from him, or those projects?

JW: I was a PowerPoint girl. I don’t know why I was, but It ended up that way. I guess, I knew all the animations on the program. And I feel like in many ways, in life, you don’t know the ramifications of what you’re doing at that time. But looking back, being the PowerPoint girl was actually so powerful in many ways because it was learning about the way Lord Foster would structure a narrative, and how he would pitch for different projects. So, I created the pitch for the Frankfurt Airport, for example, and how the different slides would be configured, what the content of each slide was, how important it was for him to feature the human hand, for example, in a photograph, and how that would play into the greater presentation. Looking back, that actually feeds into how I tell stories, and how important that is for our studio.

SSR: Right. And I love what you say that you don’t realize what you’re doing when you’re doing it, or what effect it will have. But that probably set you up for all the presentations that you do now.

JW: Yes, yes.

SSR: Maybe not in PowerPoint, but maybe in something else.

JW: Yeah. No longer PowerPoint, but yeah.

SSR: And how long did you work for him? And then, did you go on to another studio, or is that when you decided to launch your own firm?

JW: So, I worked for him for a year, and that was just before grad school. So, I went on to grad school after a year of working there, went to the Royal College, and at the time, my intent was always to go back to the U.S. for grad school. I applied to a bunch of places in the U.S., and what happened was my husband, then boyfriend at the time, he took me to a meeting with Will Alsop, who’s an incredible architect in the UK. And he happened to be Stefan’s tutor at the time. And he said to me, ‘Joyce, why don’t you apply to schools in the UK for grad school?’ I told him I knew nothing about them. He was like, ‘Go visit the summer shows.’

And the summer shows in the UK and London specifically for design schools is a huge deal. Students use it as a big opportunity to showcase their work on a public level. So, I remember going to see this incredible work produced by students and thinking, ‘Wow, this is really exciting.’ And being in the UK wasn’t planned and attending the Royal College wasn’t something that I’ve ever dreamt of but ended up going there. The experience was really difficult. My life was pretty thrown in on the deep end. And I’ll reminisce with other alumni on how testing that whole graduate program is, but I feel like it really makes you stronger if it doesn’t kill you, kind of thing.

SSR: Well, two things. So, from MIT, you went to Foster, how did you even get that job? It’s probably a highly coveted job. How did you decide to go to him? And then, also, why did you decide to go to grad school? Why did you think you needed that next layer?

JW: With Foster, I had sent my CV, and I flew to London. I was like, ‘I’m not sure if they’re going to interview me.’ But I went to the office, I turned it with my portfolio, and I just said, ‘I’d interned for you.’ It wasn’t something that was well paid at all. But it was definitely something that I knew I wanted to do. So, it was lucky enough that at the time, I landed in group three, which specializes in projects in Asia. And they needed somebody who could read Chinese and also translate some Chinese documents. So, it so happened I had some of the skillset.

SSR: And then, so you’re working at Foster, why did you decide to leave there to go to grad school? Why did you think you needed next layer?

JW: I think I wanted to qualify as an architect at the time. So, there was this thing of part one, part two, part three in the UK, where once you’re done, part one is the undergrad, part two is the grad, and the part three is what you get from work experience. So, I had part one already, and I wanted to get part two and I wanted to qualify as an architect.

SSR: And then, what did you do after grad school? After that had very intense couple of years, what did you do? What was your first step out?

JW: I went back to Hong Kong to look for a job. Actually, I looked in London first. It was an economic downturn at the time. I couldn’t find anything. I went to places like WilkinsonEyre, Buro Happold, very technically-driven offices. David Adjaye. Nobody was hiring at the time. I remember specifically going into Adjaye’s office and them saying, ‘We’re not hiring, and in fact, we’re actually letting people go.’ It was a dire situation.

So, I went back to Hong Kong, and I started applying to different places, and at the time, a friend of mine who was working for a real estate developer, who actually owned the Roosevelt Hotel in LA.” She said, ‘I know they’re up for renovation. They’re looking to hire people like Roman and Williams and Yabu Pushelberg.’ But my friend knew that the developer didn’t want to spend that level of design fees, and she was like, ‘Do you think we should pitch for it?’ And I was like, ‘Well, why not? We know they need to get the work done.’ And my friend was working for them. So, she had the floor plans. So, out of our living room/bedroom, we put together a scheme. We did animated fly-throughs on SketchUp, literally, and then presented to her boss. That’s what instigated the move to LA from Hong Kong. So, I ended up not finding a job in Hong Kong at all, and then moved to LA shortly after.

SSR: Right. And so, is that when you basically launched your own firm with that project?

JW: At the time, no. It was really a two-man [team] between my friend and I working in LA. We didn’t really have a studio at the time. It was a very gray area in the sense that we didn’t even know we had a project. I was living in LA and designing this hotel, but at the same time, the client would say, ‘We’re not sure we want to work with you guys because you’re not known. We’re not sure we like what you’re doing. And maybe we just want to work with Yabu Pushelberg.’ It was always this contentious situation of are we hired, are we not? We have a contract, but are we going to be fired the next day? So, it wasn’t this stable situation of like, we have projects under our belt. That was the only lifeline we had. We either made that one project worked, or I was out of LA. And in the end, they built the model room, and it went well. That was a turning point of the operator Thompson Hotels and the owners, Downtown Properties looking at the model room saying, ‘Okay, we think we’re going to roll this out.’ It was kind of a dream until that one day.

SSR: Right. That must have been the best day though, to hear those words? And what was it like to work on such a historic property in LA?

JW: Oh, was it completely unreal. It was an incredible opportunity. It was great in the sense that it had a great draw. Any suppliers we approached and said we’re calling for samples for the Roosevelt, we had no issues getting interest to get bids, and getting creatives interested to collaborate on the project with us. So, that was really the best thing. And we had a contractor who would have meetings with us by the pool, and it was just such a stark contrast to what I’d experienced in London or Hong Kong.

SSR: Right. And so, how long did you work on that project? What were your responsibilities there?

JW: It was two years, roughly, that we worked on it. We renovated the 60 rooms around that David Hockney Pool. They call them the cabanas. So, it’s a two-level kind of ’50s building. And they’re really known as the party rooms. And the brief was really funny, in the sense that they’re like, we need a couple of mirror table tops, we need the room to be completely hosed down because it just gets really partied up in there. People come in and out in their bathing suits, so we need upholstery that’s outdoor, waterproof, and all this. So, yeah, our scope was everything from the interiors of rooms to looking at the outdoor furniture, the corridors, artwork, basically anything that we could get our hands on with that.

SSR: What was it about your design do you think that won over the owners and the brand?

JW: I think we really tried to listen. We didn’t really have an ego of like, ‘Oh, we think this is the right way.’ We actually created a book. We made our own little flipbook, if you will, of the demographic, the guests, and stories that were told on Instagram, and it was about creating a product that was right for them and not for us. And so, the approach was like, what is the right palette of materials to use to really appeal to the guest? And really celebrating the idea of the Roosevelt being this backdrop for scandal, and all the staff who work there have tidbits of gossip, stories, what happens after hours, and behind the scenes, what they find in the hotel rooms. We compiled a lot of into this book and that in turn formed our story of what the rooms should be.

SSR: How did that process and that project set you up for where you are today?

JW: It was not an immediate okay, for sure. Because we’ve done that project and it was this odd anticlimactic, ‘Oh, what now?’ And you’d think having done the Roosevelt projects, we just come flying in, but they didn’t. We were like, ‘Okay, then what next? Let’s do a website. Let’s showcase a project.’ But then we’re like, ‘Well, there’s that only that one project. How do you create a whole website from one project?’ So, it wasn’t clear. And I had always wanted to spend more time in Hong Kong. Having studied at the RCA, went back to Hong Kong for a little bit, but then moved to LA again. My plan was like, ‘Okay, let’s not start a studio in LA, and let’s part ways and move back to Hong Kong.’

So, that was when I moved back to Hong Kong, and a friend called me at the time, and that was Tony. He was looking at a site at the age of society. And that was the project, Ammo. And he said, ‘I’m working with this designer. I heard you just moved back to Hong Kong. I really don’t like what they’ve come up with. Can you help me? I need this restaurant done like two months.’

SSR: You’re like, ‘Oh, sure.’

JW: Yeah. So, I was like, ‘Okay.’ I literally went to the site that night, and I remember sketching something with him, whilst looking at the site. It was just so panicked, and he was like, ‘Really, we just need to get this thing open.’ And I think Ammo was actually the point where it was like, ‘I think I could have a studio from this.’ I think finding the physical space was a huge part of that. And then, I think the word of mouth of Ammo, and other people reaching out to me to do more work. In fact, it was like, well, you cannot not have a studio to do more work in many ways because having a studio is in many ways communicating stability that you’re serious about taking on another project.

SSR: And what year was this?

JW: That was in 2010

SSR: And so, tell us about AMMO. How did that two-month process work? And what did you learn from that?

JW: I loved working on that project. Tony said we don’t have much time. We don’t have much money. I remember thinking okay, let me go to the plumbing shop because I remember seeing a bunch of really beautiful copper plumbing pipes and parts. The space was very tall, and it was a glass box, and when you look from the out—a big part of Ammo is this voyeuristic experience of looking at this glass box, and seeing as you’re dining inside, you’re in this fishbowl. So, creating these chandeliers out of copper piping was something that I wanted to do. And plus, it was the ammunition storage facility for the British Army back in the day. It went hand in hand in that metallic gunmetal idea. I remember doing those drawings, and then giving them to the contractor, and the contractor looked at me like I was crazy. He was like, ‘You want us to do what were these pipes?’ He was very reluctant. I was like, ‘Well, you’ll have to wire in light bulbs because we want them to be lit.’ He was just not having any of it, and it didn’t look great in front of my client, obviously, because he wanted an idea that could be executed.

I think there was definitely that moment where I was like, ‘Well, do we just think of something else because this contractor is obviously not taking me seriously, and he doesn’t want to make anything that’s so custom.’ But in the end, we mocked it up with him. I basically said, ‘Well, if you can’t do it, we’ll do it together.’ So, I bought the plumbing pipes, we did a prototype of it, like a module of it together on site, and he understood: ‘Okay, this is how you could do it.’ And I think that one lesson has definitely taught me about persistence for one. And also, I think showing people that it is possible and believing in it. If you don’t believe in it yourself, then other people won’t.

SSR: So, where do you go from here? You did a two-month project. You got it done, create a beautiful space. Is that when you were like, ‘Okay, I can do this, this should be the beginning of Joyce Wang Studio’ or was there still another step that you got there?

JW: Yeah. No, no, that was it. No, that was it. Ammo was it because I think Hong Kong also has this amazing benefit of being very small. And so, word travels like, ‘Oh, Joyce did Ammo.’ And at the time, other people would hear about it and they’d say, ‘Okay, I think I could approach her and work with her.’ And just through word of mouth, without even worrying about a website. I think my next worry from Ammo was hiring a drafter, and actually, bringing in a team who could help execute documentation, and drawings, and things like that. So, for a while, I think we were like a three- to four-person team.

SSR: Right. How big are you now?

JW: So, we’re 10 in London and 10 in Hong Kong.

SSR: Oh, wow. That’s a pretty good size. From Ammo, where did you go from there? Ammo and Roosevelt probably are two put you on the map projects. But was there another project that you think really helped define Joyce Wang Studio, or you as a designer, or helped you move forward?

JW: Without a doubt, Mott 32. I think it was just such an unexpected turnaround of a site. It was a site that nobody wanted. Everybody in Hong Kong knew about the site. But nobody wanted to touch it because it was in the basement, it had no natural light. You had to take two escalators down, and then another flight of stairs. There was no straightforward way of getting there. There was no car drop off. It was just destined to be a failure of a restaurant, or space. It was interesting because I met Maximal Concepts, who are the guys who operate that restaurant, and they’re now opening in Bangkok. We’ve helped them in Vancouver, Singapore, Vegas, and looking at more sites. So, it’s a concept that’s really succeeded.

SSR: And who knew, with one project, you never knew one location can grow into a little mini empire.

JW: Definitely. If I took you down to that space on day one of us doing that site visit, there’s no way. It was just this basement, unattractive. Nobody would have thought it’d be a destination restaurant for sure.

SSR: Right. And so, how did you approach it? How did you take that challenge and create a solution?

JW: I think a huge part of the credit has to go to the operator. They had an incredible narrative. Matt, Malcolm, and Xuan, they’re big on storytelling. And they had a backstory of why it’s called Mott 32, who used to live there, who used to use the space, the story, and the traits and characteristics of what they liked. Different habits they might have had, things they might have stored, or forgotten behind.

I think one really powerful, and maybe I shouldn’t even be saying, it’s like on a very political note, it’s not a Chinese-Chinese restaurant, it’s a Hong Kong-Chinese restaurant. And I think that really strikes a chord with many people in Hong Kong in the sense that Hong Kong has had a very distinct history. We have influences from British colonialism, Chinese imperialism, the West, and it’s a combination of all of those things. And Hong Kong-Chinese restaurants either round with table clothes, very traditional, and families go, and it’s very rowdy, or they’re more westernized. Mott 32 is a marriage of both. You get people who come in who want the banquet food, but also people who are visiting Hong Kong for the first time, and they want authentic Chinese food, but in a more friendly westernized setting.

From the get-go, there was a really distinctive personality about it. And for me at the time, I remember being really busy at the time at the studio, and there wasn’t a specific team that could even work on it. But all I knew was we really need to work on this project. I think we’re five people at the time, and everybody worked on it, everybody pulled. I even have Nick, a friend of mine who’s a jewelry designer, actually freelance on this job with us. And he was responsible for finding accessories for the project, which was a huge part of it because each piece of accessory had to tell a different part of the story, whether it’d be weighing scales that they used to use on Mott Street in New York, or a bank teller window because it is in the basement of a bank, and procuring all these things, and stitching together this whole story is a fulltime job. And everybody was expending a lot of that same level of energy and detailing into this one space.

SSR: I think we met you first or found you first after Ammo. And then, Mott 32 though, it just got written up everywhere. It was just such an instant hit. Did you think that would be the reaction to it, that winning all those awards, and also won great food, and service, and quality back to the operator? Did you think it would have that success, or again, doing something you never really know, right?

JW: You never really know. No. Like I said for the studio, it was everybody’s project, and it was honestly looking back, probably one of the most fun, if not the most fun project, the studio has ever had working on. I think because the clients were just so busy with opening. At the time, Maximal, they were opening five other restaurant concepts. And usually, they design in-house, and they just said, ‘Joyce, we normally don’t work with outside designers. We normally design in-house, but because we don’t have enough time, you guys are just going to have to do it.’ So, they gave us a lot of freedom. The story was very specific, but how we interpreted it was completely left to us like free. So, I think at the time, we had no idea what it was going to do. I think you do work with clients who say, ‘I think this concept might be translatable globally. We’re looking to open and other places.’ But I think Mott 32 really stood behind that, and it definitely wasn’t something that I had expected.

SSR: I’ve eaten at the one in Vegas, which is just immersive, and cool and you want to hang out in it and you never want to leave that space, which I think is what you do very well is the level of detail that just every time you go into one of your spaces, I feel like you get a new experience, but one that’s just as exciting as the next. And so, how did you translate that into Las Vegas and then also Vancouver? How did you take that downstairs, underground concept and then create it in places that are the exact opposite?

JW: I think with Vegas, we wanted to do something that was larger than life, knowing about the culture of exhibitionism, and all the way from that to just having larger groups of people actually come in to dine, and how the space, and concept could accommodate for that. The level of showmanship that people are used to and expecting when they visit Vegas. It was a ramped-up Mott 32 for that purpose. We created chandeliers that was inspired by the roulette table, and neon plays on neon lighting, and turning that into different moments within the space. We didn’t want it to be overtly Vegas, but at the same time, we wanted it to be authentic to Mott 32 more than anything else. And I think the site successfully marries that spectrum of what is Mott 32 and what is Vegas?

SSR: You guys do a lot of restaurants, and we’ll get to your other work beyond restaurants in a minute, but what do you think dining should be? Do you have a systematic approach to what a restaurant needs to be, or a thought process in your studio?

JW: So, we don’t get involved when we don’t believe in the food. That’s always the main thing. I was like, ‘Okay, if you want us to work on this restaurant, we have to have a taste test.’ Because in many ways, it is such a letdown. We have worked on places before where the design sings, but the food is a letdown, or I guess, to be frank, it doesn’t work vice versa either. But as designers, we want to make sure first and foremost, the food is taken care of. The food, the people, the ambiance, the restaurateur caring about the food, that experience, it actually translates to everything else.

SSR: And so, obviously, you’ve done a lot more besides restaurants. So, I don’t even know where to begin. But to start, I feel like we should talk about Equinox, and that partnership, and how you’ve been helping them evolve what design is for fitness, health, and wellbeing, and how important that is today, especially amid COVID?

JW: I met Aaron Richter, who I know has been on another podcast of yours, Stacy. So, we met Aaron in London, way before we even started working together. I think Aaron, like yourself, had a pulse on the studio early on, and he knew he wanted to work with us Day One. He looked at Ammo when it was first published, and he said, ‘Okay, I want to work with you. We don’t have a site yet.’ But we met at a potential In London, which never came of anything. Nothing ever came of it.

But Aaron then contacted us maybe a year or two after that first meeting and said, ‘I think we have a project for you guys.’ That was the St. James site for the E club. And I think working with Aaron and his team, and Chris Norton out of Equinox, it’s been such a wild experience of really working with a gym, but we never think of it that way. It’s so much about the lifestyle, and I think even as we were doing the gym, in many ways, the thought process was beyond the gym.

It was like creating the experience—the guest experience of how you could elevate the idea of working out how the design could be provocative to the experience of working out and how you could create amenity surrounding health and wellness and create longer-stay environments with retail, F&B, and areas where people could feel comfortable enough to work after their workout and socialize.

SSR: So, it’s so much more than just a gym. It’s almost a destination for people. And then, you also get to work on the one at Hudson Yards.

JW: Yes. So, that, we worked on the wellness, the spa, the spa level, and also the fitness level. So, it includes the indoor pool, outdoor pool, the treatment rooms, relaxation areas, the fitness studios, the gym floor, the reception. It was incredible in that I remember when Chris and Aaron would speak about this concept of doing a flagship Equinox hotel. Nothing existed before then and wanting to compete with the luxury of brands of the Four Seasons, the Mandarin Oriental in the city. Definitely, I had my doubts in the beginning on how we would accomplish this with a gym, essentially.

And I think now that you see how the whole space functions, and how at the time, when we first worked on it. We thought, wow, they’re really dedicated the prime real estate to the gym floor, and the spa levels. This is unheard of. Normally, gyms are stuck in basements with no natural light. This is the exact opposite of that. They’ve placed in the most prized area of the building with incredible views of Thomas Heatherwick’s sculpture. Really high ceilings, natural light, and as a somebody who cares about wellness health when you travel, this is one of those hotels, probably the only one that you can receive that amount of care. As you check in, the concierge is recommending health and fitness programs, attending to your spa appointments, making recommendations about diet, fitness. If you’re already an Equinox member, and they know that you’re training for a marathon, for example, and they have all your stats. So, it’s really this idea of a holistic hospitality that doesn’t just center around here’s your room with a really comfy bed. It’s really catering to making you feel good about your body and making you feel like you’re leaving the hotel a better, more well-performing person than you are, which is incredible, right?

SSR: Right. And especially, I think today, wellness was already having its moment. And now with COVID, I think it’s going to be even more important as people start to travel, is how can you continue to take care of yourself?

JW: Exactly.

SSR: And the space is huge. I know you said flagship, but I think it’s one of their largest wellness facilities.

JW: Yeah. I think it’s 20,000 square feet.

SSR: Some designers have a look, and that’s what people hire them for. But I feel like you guys adapt to the location, and what the project is. But what is good design to you? What do you tell your team? What do you try to achieve through your design? Because I feel like there is that underlying conversation or dialogue that exists in all of your spaces, even though they don’t look the same, but there’s still a feeling that exists in each one.

JW: First of all, I think it starts at the beginning of entertaining new business and figuring out what projects we should be working on. I think we have to have a passion in that city or want to find out more about it. If it’s not a place that we would normally want to visit or be curious about its people and to meet people who live there or want to understand how they live, there’s probably not much point to design for it, if that makes sense.

You have to be curious about a place and derive a material palette to tell a story that’s authentic to that place. And in many ways, I feel like it’s like Pygmalion, where you’re chipping away a marble to reveal this beautiful girl, who’s always been there. And I think when you hit that right chord, you just know, ‘Okay, this feels right.’ It’s interesting, I remember one of the first lessons with the Roosevelt was at the time, my friend and I, we were compiling a material board in our makeshift studio, and it looked right there. But then we took the material board on site to the Roosevelt, and it looked all wrong, it just didn’t belong. We had a different turn of upholstery, and then we had to bring the materials, to that space to that light. Then, there was this ‘aha moment’ between the two of us, and we just thought, ‘Okay, this is something that feels right.’ You need something fresh. So, you forget how important context is.

SSR: With that in mind, who’s been the biggest influencers in your work today? I know you worked for Sir [Norman] Foster, and I’m sure he was one, but are there others that you get inspired by, or you watch their work, or it doesn’t have to be just an interior designer, architecture, could be another facet of design?

JW: I’m hugely inspired by my team I have to say. We’re a team of individuals who I feel like a lot of them work harder than I do, and I’m definitely inspired by that every day. I want to give my best because I have a really incredible team who really care about the studio. And I think that for me, that’s a huge part of it. That’s a huge part of why I devote as much as I do and I think drawing that energy from each other, that’s been an incredible honor.

I remember as I was working at Foster’s, my boss at the time, Michael Gentz—it was really difficult hours, and it was a lot of hard work—but I remember I had to build this model, and he came with me to buy materials for it and it was odd hours, I’d stay really late, and he sent me a message in the end, and he just said, ‘Thank you.’ I really appreciate that. I remember how much that message had meant to me. And I guess that’s paid it forward to how appreciative I am of the team, as well because I know how little things can really make an impact.

SSR: And what would you wish you had known, your firm is 10 years old, give or take a year, and what do you wish you had known then that you know now, or how has it evolved in a way that was somewhat surprising to what you thought looking back 10 years ago?

JW: I’m not sure I know anything more now than I did before. I think it goes back to what we’re saying before about as you’re doing something you don’t really know the impact of it until probably later on. I think for me at the beginning of my career, it was the decisions of what projects that I could take on versus what I couldn’t. And I think making that decision to stay small from the beginning has made it so much easier to stay true to that later on. And I think if you announce that to people, they then understand it. People understand that as your priority versus if you were wishy-washy or you’re unsure. Then I think it becomes difficult to wade off the pressure of, maybe we’ll take on a couple more projects.

Because that statement is clear to the team, when anybody applies, it’s clear that there will only be 10 seats in the London studio and only be 10 seats ever in the Hong Kong studio. And we’re not going to be renting another space to accommodate more people to work on more projects. That’s not the studio I’m interested in building. So, I think that has made a lot of decisions easier later on because of that clarity in the beginning.

SSR: And we always end the podcast with what, it’s titled what I’ve learned, what has been that greatest lesson learned?

JW: I’d say the greatest lesson is probably saying no is probably as important as saying yes to things. And when I reflect on things that I’ve said no to, that’s actually opened up doors to other things. And that’s probably the greatest lesson learned without complicating it too much.

SSR: Yeah. Simple. I like it. Well, thank you. I know it’s late your time, and I love catching up with you. I could talk to you for another couple hours. But thank you so much for taking the time to do this with us.