Jeffrey Beers: 2024 Hall of Fame Tribute

How Jeffrey Beers Expanded His Auspicious Career

Beers began his career auspiciously. At the suggestion of his Rhode Island School of Design mentor, glass artist Dale Chihuly, Beers applied for and won a Fulbright scholarship that took him to Rio de Janeiro, where he worked for Oscar Niemeyer for two years, imbibing the emotional, sculptural nature of Brazilian modernism. Subsequent time at the office of I.M. Pei taught Beers the power of detail, the importance of diplomacy, and the equal weight that should be given to form and feeling. After eight years with Pei, he struck out on his own, making a splash with JBI’s inaugural project, in 1985: Bar Lui, its 180-foot bar—billed the city’s longest—celebrating the space’s long-and-narrow proportions and setting the tone for a portfolio that would make social connection the design focal point.

JBI quickly expanded with high-profile Manhattan venues like China Grill and Fiamma that demonstrated Beers’s keen awareness of atmosphere. His spaces had a theatrical precision that delighted guests while fulfilling the operator’s needs—choreographing movement from bar to table, planning sightlines and light levels, and designing for seamless service. This talent resonated with top culinary talents; over the years, Beers collaborated with celebrity chefs Masaharu Morimoto, Gordon Ramsay, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and especially Daniel Boulud, with whom he created five restaurants across the globe, beginning with DB Brasserie at the Wynn Las Vegas, in 2006.

Exploring A Long-Lasting Legacy

Though Beers was synonymous with NYC nightlife in the early years, he was also one of the first big-name designers to put a more refined stamp on Sin City as it was morphing in the late ’90’s into a haute culinary destination. With venues like Rum Jungle, Tabu Ultra Lounge, and Japonais, he nailed the sybaritic flourishes that such a context required but he also brought nuance and polish to the game.

His emotive approach translated well to hotels, too. Beers’s first major top-to-bottom resort was the Cove at Atlantis on Paradise Island in the Bahamas, in 2007, and he was also given the honor and responsibility of upgrading such storied destinations as Gloria Palace in Rio de Janeiro and The Fontainebleau in Miami Beach. JBI has teamed with top brands including Fairmount, Four Seasons, Hard Rock, and Omni, creating transporting environs rounded in modernism that fused the magic and joie de vivre of the travel experience with more practical needs of guests and operators. In the last decade or so, as residential developers increasingly borrowed from the hotel playbook, Beers’s expertise extended naturally into that genre, evident in his concepts for iconic residential projects like One West End and One Fifty Seven in New York and Alyx at Echelon Seaport and Ritz-Carlton Residences in Boston.

Beers’s influence went beyond the built environment. He was a mentor, guide, inspirer, friend, and cheerleader, renowned for giving you his full attention, making you feel you were the only person in the room. He treated everyone the same, from the plumber on the job site to celebrity clients like Jay-Z, for whom he designed the 40/40 Club and Roc Nation headquarters, both in New York. As a leader, he was known for fostering a collaborative, creative spirit within his studio. He often said he looked for “good dance partners” in his team, bringing together people who both shared his enthusiasm and invested their personal passions. Among them are partners Nora Liu-Kanter, Michael Pandolfi, and Tim Rooney, longtime colleagues who now guide the firm alongside COO Julia Choi, CFO Jeffrey Ashey, and the older of his two sons, Justin, a former real-estate exec—a team Beers handpicked when succession planning. Such continuity ensures that Beers’s ethos—creating spaces that connect people and connect with people—remains at the heart of his firm’s award-winning work.

Take A Look At Jeffrey Beers’ Hospitality Designs

Discover Jeffrey Beers’s Residential + Product Designs

Rottet Studio Designs A Luxurious Fort Worth Hotel

Lauren Rottet designs hotels and workplaces and residences all over the world, but she was born, raised, and educated in Texas and founded her now five-office firm there. So, when she offers up a nuanced description of Fort Worth, the burg of nearly 1 million located 30 miles west of Dallas, you know it’s a legit assessment. “Fort Worth is a quiet, unpretentious city with a lot of old money and stunning estates, and it’s also quite dynamic and social,” the Interior Design Hall of Fame member explains, adding that the college town has a devoted football fan base and major game-day culture (Texas Christian University’s Horned Frogs were Big 12 champs in 2023). Although perhaps best known by its nickname, Cow Town, courtesy of its protected cattle industry and stock shows, Rottet continues, “More recently, it’s come into its own as an entertainment venue and an art destination.”

That latter designation is thanks largely to a trio of institutions that line up along Camp Bowie Boulevard in the downtown cultural district: the Kimbell Art Museum, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and the Amon Carter Museum of Art. Rottet and an “all-women power team” from her Houston and Austin offices spent much time in those hallowed blue-chip halls when conceiving the Crescent Hotel directly across the street. The 200-key, 216,000-square-foot luxury property anchors a new-build mixed-use development that includes a high-end residential component and a Canyon Ranch Wellness Club (which the firm designed for the same client, Crescent Real Estate). “The whole block related to the museums, so we drew on that,” Rottet says. Her team looked at not only the masterworks that hung on the museum walls but also the walls themselves and other architectural finishes. “All three museums boiled down to two materials—one type of wood, one stone—so we took cues from that and decided to go as purist as possible,” Rottet describes. “The interior is quite robust in its color and forms and visual interest, but also minimal in a way.”

The Crescent’s lobby is, naturally, the space that forges the strongest connection with its artful neighbors. Gallery-esque white walls are ample enough to accommodate large-scale canvases, which provide the majority of the color. Sight lines were strategically mapped out, down to the view from within the elevator while waiting for the doors to close. Floors are pale oak, just like those in Louis I. Kahn’s 1972 Kimbell building. Structural columns are partially clad in limestone, referencing Philip Johnson’s 1961 Amon Carter facility, while others were concealed: one within a faceted plaster fireplace, an abstraction of early 20th–century Spanish Mission style (“like what you might have found in a grand house during Fort Worth’s heyday,” Rottet notes), and another behind a floating partition outlined with a subtle reveal, creating a sort of frame and pedestal for a Madeline Peckenpaugh oil painting from the hotel’s impressive contemporary collection.

The studio’s mission for the F&B spaces was to devise a modular dining zone that could expand and contract according to time of day and flow of patrons and that was flexible enough to host simultaneous shindigs. “The hotel is very centered around private functions—events are a big deal there,” Rottet emphasizes. “The challenge was trying to figure out how many parties could be thrown at once.” Sliding glass doors framed in bronze-finished steel screen the restaurant’s open-concept kitchen during morning coffee service and predinner prep, so it always feels activated, never empty. Multiple private rooms have direct kitchen or courtyard access, including one veiled behind a glass wine-storage wall and the white-tablecloth Blue Room, which is the most saturated manifestation of the hotel’s sky-toned palette.

Guest accommodations cater to art tourists, Canyon Ranch spa-goers, and attendees of football games, weddings, bachelorette bashes, and other events requiring multiple costume changes. Given this clientele, a minibar and ample wardrobe space were essential and ultimately dictated the layouts. “Pushing the bar into the room allowed the dressing area to be more prominent, so there’s a spot to place your shopping bags and take off your shoes as you come in,” Rottet explains. The size of closets and built-in storage was also maximized. “It’s all about the party and ‘Where am I gonna hang the dress?’”

Certainly, one needn’t leave the hotel to have a ball. The courtyard and restaurant are filled around the clock with hotel guests and locals, but the most party-centric space is Ralph’s, the top-floor speakeasy and a decadent departure from the otherwise elegantly restrained vibe. A hand-painted, gold-leaf mural wraps around the bar, M.C. Escher–esque wallpaper sheathes the ceiling, and vintage-inflected multifunctional seating units are kitted out in performance velvet. Barstools embroidered with a dromedary motif nod to the family who once owned the land the hotel stands on. “We found amazing archival video footage from the ’70’s, when a camel purchased from the Neiman Marcus catalog was delivered to their home dressed in gold and red tasseled ropes,” Rottet laughs. It’s that kind of locally specific insider’s detail that gives the Crescent a feeling of authentic hospitality. “Coming here feels like you’re being invited into someone’s grand home,” she concludes. “It’s very much designed around entertaining, welcoming you in, and getting a drink in your hand before sitting down together.”

Experience A Warm Welcome At The Crescent Hotel

ROTTET STUDIO: ANJA MAJKIC; TAYLOR MOCK; HANNAH RAE. OZ ARCHITECTURE: ARCHITECT OF RECORD. TBG PARTNERS: LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT. OLDNER LIGHTING: LIGHTING DESIGNER. RUNYON ARTS: ART CONSULTANT. VIEWTECH: STRUCTURAL ENGINEER. BLUM CONSULTING ENGINEERS: MEP. DUNAWAY: CIVIL ENGINEER. AMTREND: CUSTOM FURNITURE WORKSHOP. ANDRES CONSTRUCTION: GENERAL CONTRACTOR.

FROM FRONT KYLE BUNTING: CUSTOM CHAIR UPHOLSTERY (RECEPTION). BRIDGEPORT: CUSTOM CREDENZAS, CUSTOM TABLES. IWORKS: CUSTOM CHANDELIERS (RECEPTION, BLUE ROOM). HAWORTH: SOFAS (LOUNGE). MM LAMPADARI: CHANDELIER (RESTAURANT). FURNITURE ATELIER: CUSTOM TABLES (RESTAURANT), CUSTOM CASEGOODS, CUSTOM SECTIONAL (SUITE). LUKE LAMP CO.: CUSTOM PENDANT FIXTURE (CONFERENCE ROOM). CAM STUDIO: CUSTOM PEN­DANT FIXTURE (WINE PRIVATE DINING). HILL ASSOCIATES: SOFAS, CHAIRS, TABLES (COURT­YARD). JONATHAN CHARLES: CUSTOM SOFA, CUSTOM CHAIRS, CUSTOM TABLE (BAR). ARTE: CEIL­ING WALLCOVERING (SPEAKEASY). LIGHT ANNEX: PENDANT FIXTURES. DAC ART CONSULTING: ART (CORRIDORS). CROSSLEY AXMINSTER: CUSTOM CARPET. THORNTREE SLATE: FLOOR TILE. PIANCA: CHAIR (SUITE). ROTTET COLLECTION: MIRROR. POTOCCO: DINING CHAIRS. VISUAL COMFORT: PENDANT FIXTURE. THROUGHOUT SACCO CARPET: CUSTOM RUGS, CUSTOM CARPET. SYGMA STONE: STONE SUPPLIER. FARROW & BALL: PAINT.

Peek At These Homes That Embody Modern Urban Living

In metropolitan locales from Madrid to Moscow, strategically redesigned residences transcend their historical trappings and spatial limitations to tout the bright side of urban habitation.

Walk Through These Thoughtfully Redesigned Residences

Prague Apartment by Malfinio

PrevNext

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

A Czech Functionalist–style tenement apartment in Prague was liberated from layers of anachronistic modifications to reveal its inherent light-and-openness, a quality preserved by grouping support functions (kitchen, baths, closets) behind an enfilade of operable MDF panels decorated with watercolor-y flourishes. The configuration keeps the L-shape space otherwise free-flowing, a tabula rasa for choose-your-own-adventure living that adapts to needs; for instance, the workout corner with gymnastics rings could later become a kid’s play spot. The sleeping area is partitioned via ceiling-hung linen curtains hand-painted with tones that complement etched-aluminum and stainless-steel details throughout.

New York Unit by Productora

PrevNext

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Floor-to-ceiling shelving powder-coated lemony RAL 1012 takes on epic proportions and myriad functions at the ground-floor SoHo loft. The steel unit’s depth was exploited by interspersing it with clerestories, nooks, and millwork so it could multitask as divider, storage, and sleeping mezzanine. Other features like terrazzo bathroom tile, a stainless-steel kitchen countertop, and wire-glass interior windows convey a more utilitarian character befitting the 1868 building, which is also home to an historic artist’s cooperative.

Barcelona Studio by Allaround Lab

PrevNext

• 

• 

• 

• 

This studio inside a century-old building in the Eixample district, known for its Antoni Gaudí edifices, is a conceptual exercise that posits home as “infrastructure defined by its potential for use,” notes the local firm, which sought to distill the essence of habitation into its basest constituent activities: cooking, sleeping/living, ablutions. Thus, the 1910 apartment’s original rabbit warren of rooms was converted into an unprogrammed open layout—adjustable via sliding panels from a one-to a two-bedroom—centering on a white-box kitchen marked by a swath of ceramic tile that looks like a flying carpet launching into midair.

Moscow Apartment by SKNYPL

PrevNext

• 

• 

• 

• 

In lieu of solid walls, two rows of pivoting oak doors separate this apartment into zones for sleeping, lounging, and mealtime, which can be combined into one single sweep of space—a configuration that maximizes daylight from the living area’s bay window nook, sheathed in tile inspired by those cladding the public areas of the 1952 landmarked building. A flower-shaped epoxy-resin aperture funnels light from the living area into the windowless bathroom behind, while custom furniture channels the vibe of a mid-century Soviet academic flat.

Madrid Home by Studio Zooco

PrevNext

• 

• 

• 

• 

This semidetached house with deep 40-foot floor plate begged for an influx of daylight and better connection between its four levels, achieved via a skylit cutaway above the stairwell that acts as a lantern and a serene, reductive palette of pale oak millwork and white-painted walls. The same wood was used for functional elements in every room, from storage enclosures and the hearth to a slatted screen by the entry and a built-in breakfast nook.

PrevNext

• 

• 

• 

• 

The quirky mise-en-scène of a creative couple’s cozy quarters reflects their yen for Wes Anderson films by way of nostalgia-tinged pastel hues—deployed in strategic color-blocking to establish rooms-within-rooms and hide elements like dropped ceilings. The décor balances fun touches, like the carefully styled (and stylized) accessories, with cleverly functional ones, such as a built-in cat-litter box and a kitchen island with retractable screen for projecting movies. The homeowners have a love of terrazzo, too, hence its recurrence throughout.

5 Must-See Global Revitalization Projects

From a zero-carbon government campus in California to a rehabbed Australian train station aglow in pastels, blue-sky concepts fuel ambitious community revitalization projects across the globe.

PrevNext

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

project Automatic Mills, Pardubice, Czech Republic.

standout Adaptive reuse turned a century-old flour mill, with facade by Czech modernist Josef Gočár, into a cultural and educational complex, including a 12,200-square-foot grain silo, its machine room converted into a multipurpose hall, grain bins into an exhibition space, and rooftop into an alfresco lounge with bar. The sensitive redesign showcases the patina of original surfaces—graphic exterior brickwork and poetically pockmarked concrete interior walls—while other gestures dissolve boundaries, such as floors inset with glass blocks to convey light between levels.

Sako Architects

PrevNext

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

project Yang Zheng Kindergarten, Tianshui, China.

standout A festive bonbon of a building houses a 29,800-square-foot school conceived as a new landmark for the city and designed to nurture creativity and joy. Classrooms surround a skylit central atrium (warmed by subfloor radiant heating) that doubles as an activity zone when weather prohibits access to the rooftop playground. Casting a dancing rainbow of light are 438 laminated-glass elements, in 10 colors, activating doors, balustrades, and window half-rounds, all in arcing shapes that nod to vernacular dwellings in the surrounding Loess Plateau.

OMA

PrevNext

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

project Lantern, Detroit.

standout This mixed-use arts hub—programmed with 21,400 square feet of gallery spaces, a letterpress printer, workshops, a recording studio, and more—is located in Little Village, an emergent cultural district. Firm partner Jason Long spearheaded conversion of the erstwhile bakery and warehouse, leveraging a section of the building that was missing its roof as an excuse to carve out an interior courtyard and entry that fosters tenant and community togetherness. Some 1,300 round windows punctured into the concrete-masonry southern facade offer a pixelated view of the activity within.

ZGF Architects

PrevNext

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

project Department of General Services, May S. Lee State Office Complex, Sacramento, California.

standout Sustainability and speed-to-market were drivers for this 1.25 million-square-foot, 171⁄2-acre all-electric campus—the country’s largest zero-carbon office complex, serving as a model for other such developments. The four thoughtfully massed mid-rise structures, interconnected by skywalks as well as publicly accessible plazas and lushly planted pathways, are cohesive yet have a distinct identity and materiality that threads inside airy lobbies and work- spaces boasting modular programming, community-boosting interconnecting stairs, and locale-inspired environmental graphics depicting mountains, grizzly bears, and the like.

Wood Marsh

PrevNext

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

project Bell Station, Darebin, Australia.

standout A rail line that connects central Melbourne to its northern suburbs was upgraded with new stations and elevated tracks, below which some 60,000 square feet of landscaping by collaborating firm Tract and recreation space bolster accessibility, community, and safety. Color was used as a placemaking device, in this case a piquant pink and lilac palette that crops up in lighting (including the tracks at night), painted piers, and windows in the facade, its faceted concrete form abstracting surrounding houses and rooflines, while such elements as patterned screens in elevators and along the viaducts honor Indigenous traditions.

5 Residential Developments Designed for Community Connection

Residential developments from New York to Prague, market-rate to luxury, are devised to foster tenant community—and respect their surrounding ones.

Check Out These Community-Focused Rentals, From New York to Prague

Overline Residences by Morris Adjmi Architects

PrevNext

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

An angular footprint and distinctive stepped profile lend this redbrick rental building dynamism while creating interstices for communal and private terraces and verdant paths that steer residents to the nearby BeltLine greenway and surrounding Old Fourth Ward district in Atlanta. The latter’s industrial vernacular informed the materials palette—masonry floors, patinated-steel paneling, rough-hewn timber—of the interior amenity spaces.

---

378 West End Avenue by CookFox Architects 

PrevNext

• 

• 

• 

• 

A 1915 edifice with terra-cotta cresting was renovated, restored, and then expanded via a modern brick addition and a below-grade excavation that allowed for a squash court, saltwater lap pool, recording studio, and more. The New York luxury condominium’s ground-floor public spaces are likewise a hybrid of classic and contemporary, from the garden terrace with sculptural stone benches to the lounge with vintage-inflected furniture and painterly carpet.  

---

Brunson Terrace by Brooks + Scarpa

PrevNext

• 

• 

• 

• 

Connecting with and protecting nature, the affordable-housing complex in Santa Monica, California, orients apartments around a semipublic outdoor “room” with drought-resistant vegetation and colorful play structures. EV-charging stations, a living roof, an under-sidewalk infiltration system for stormwater runoff, and recycled, locally manufactured interior finishes such as formaldehyde-free MDF and FSC-certified oak make it net-zero to boot.

---

Iconik by Edit!

PrevNext

• 

• 

• 

• 

A single low-rise in Prague looks like two, courtesy of staggered rooflines and different tones of ceramic-tile cladding, a device that suits both local building regulations and the scale of the surrounding secessionist gems and old factories. Its oversize windows are veiled for privacy by way of balcony railings, airy loggias, and, on the left-hand facade’s lower levels, aluminum slats mimicking the site’s previous street-front.

---

T46 by Fesselet Krampulz Architectes

PrevNext

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Perforated, corrugated aluminum sheeting tempers the glazed facade of and forms cantilevered balconies on this mixed-use building in Vevey, Switzerland, which stacks five apartment floors atop two commercial ones—including the firm’s own studio—and emphasizes well-detailed construction, use of ready-made materials, and efficient floor plans. Interior finishes juxtapose exposed concrete and custom terrazzo pavers with timber and exuberant tilework.

UniFor’s Ethereal Furniture Range Transforms Living Spaces

Interior Design Hall of Famer Debra Lehman Smith and her Washington and New York–based firm, LSM, are renowned for exacting, elemental, and art gallery–esque corporate environs for the Fortune 500 set. The firm’s lifeblood, she explains, is deep, decades-long relationships with likeminded clients, from Bloomberg to Gulfstream, as well as artists and manufacturing partners. Among her frequent teammates is Molteni Group’s UniFor, with whom she’s worked for 20-odd years on furniture designs that, courtesy of “the company’s engineering expertise and craftsmanship,” rise to the status of “all-inclusive environments,” Lehman Smith notes. Building on that relationship, LSM will debut at Salone del Mobile Milano in April an ongoing series, Andromeda, its name a nod to a land art monument in Sicily by shepherd-turned-sculptor Lorenzo Reina (also the location in which the pieces were photographed). Designed with firm director Mark Alan Andre, the range encompasses a looks-good-from-all-angles curved or linear seating unit, a conference table, side table with round or oval top, and a “bare-minimal” credenza. The palette is succinct but ultra-refined—leather upholstery; bevel-edged tabletops in Italian travertine, terra-cotta, and concrete-like ceramic—with the commonality being polished-aluminum bases that reflect their surroundings, providing an ethereal, floating feel and a chameleon-like quality: both transformed by and transforming their environment. unifor.it/en

Learn How Design Can Manifest a Brighter Future in This Gensler Tome

Gensler Global Cochairs Discuss Design + The Future

Interior Design: Congrats on the book! Why this topic now?

Andy Cohen: We wanted to write about design’s ability to tackle the major challenges of a radically changing world head-on.

Diane Hoskins: Change is happening at such a rapid and accelerating pace, an effect we coined the “crisis multiplier” in the book. Each crisis happens so soon after the last one: climate change, COVID, geopolitical instability. It means we need to think about design very differently—and get more people to recognize that design needs to be part of the answer.

ID: What message do you want your colleagues to take away from this book?

AC: That climate change is the business imperative of our time. Nearly 40 percent of all carbon emissions is attributable to the building and construction industry. The flip side of that is: As designers and architects, we have a real opportunity to make a positive impact on climate change. Gensler’s taking a stand by committing to reducing carbon emissions in our projects by 2030.

ID: Your discussion of A.I.’s power to reinvent the design process is intriguing. 

DH: We’ve been through new technology adoption—and the training that goes along with it—multiple times in our careers: first CAD, then Revit and parametric modeling. There is not a team in our firm that hasn’t harnessed A.I. in some way. There’s a lot of enthusiasm around how A.I. allows faster iteration; it’s like being able to apply your Pinterest board or “what-ifs” in real time. It stimulates design ideation in a way we’ve never seen before. You can bring a hand sketch into a model, and then sketch again on top of that, and A.I. will convert it to the next visualization. A.I. also has the power to remove barriers to the profession, to engage young people and unlock opportunity.

AC: And it’s not just younger generations who are interested; old guys like me have never had a tool like this that translates hand-sketches into 3D reality! We just finished a really interesting project, the Santa Clara, California, headquarters of artificial intelligence–computing company Nvidia, during which the client gave us tips for how to incorporate A.I. into our process.

ID: How are you designing today’s workplaces to be “a destination, not an obligation,” as you put it?

AC: Our workplace survey showed the top reason people want to return to the office is for focus. But research also found a 37 percent drop-off in collaboration during COVID. So, these days we’re creating a phenomenal amount of living room space where people can come together. Our redesigned San Francisco office, for instance, has become a laboratory of the future workplace, with a layering of zones. The front is like a coffee shop, with music playing; the middle is collaboration space, designed with noise-attenuation technology so you don’t hear the group sitting at the next table; and the back is a pin-drop-quiet library for focusing. 

DH: Design isn’t task work; it’s about the whole person. So, we focus on the power of presence and the innovation it sparks, and even more so on the culture, which comes from relationships and the ability to learn, mentor, and grow alongside each other. More and more companies are recognizing they’re at their best—from the standpoint of innovation, speed, accuracy, efficiency—when everyone’s present together. 

ID: You highlight the importance of designing structures with built-in flexibility for different future uses.

AC: Look at all the B and C office buildings currently sitting empty, every one of which will need to be transformed through adaptive reuse. Gensler created an algorithm for cities and developers to analyze a building portfolio and determine applicability of renovation into much-needed housing. Only 25 percent of structures prove suitable, but that’s still millions of square feet. When prices drop low enough it becomes economically viable to retrofit those buildings into apartments. We just completed Pearl House, the largest such conversion to open in New York.

ID: The future of cities is a sort of sub-theme of the book. Tell us about other urban challenges you’re solving for.

DH: At the Meridian Diplomacy Forum, I met with mayors of Ukraine cities that were destroyed, to help them think through rebuilding. They know that by having a forward vision, they’re giving their people hope. Design makes hope tangible.

ID: Was it hard to find a writing voice that was optimistic yet urgent?

DH: Look, we’d still be in COVID if someone hadn’t created the vaccine. It took innovation, focus, and intensity to get to that solution. It’s within our grasp to make a difference in the world. We have this power—how the design brain connects the dots and thinks big and the collaborative nature of the profession. Our discipline is really well positioned to be the problem solvers of our time. We can do it.

Dynamic Staircases Encourage Movement in This Tech Office

2023 Best of Year Winner for Commercial Staircase

“Movement” was the design concept for this 16-floor tech workspace in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a notion exemplified via a series of dynamic feature staircases that encourage physicality and interaction while expressing and celebrating the flow of foot traffic between levels. Designed by Utile and Merge Architects, connecting three of the floors is an asymmetrically stacked ribbon of steel, its ash balustrade morphing into banquette seating at the base. The swooping form exerts a gravitational pull, inviting staffers to look over and enjoy views of the activity. Another stair with a geometric switchback profile makes a statement in bold blue, its translucent Panelite sidewall filtering the motion of ascent and descent through to the opposite side.

UTILE: MIMI LOVE; CHANTEL KOCHER; CLAUDIA PORRAS; JACK CORRIVEAU; PETRA JAROLIMOVA.

MERGE ARCHITECTS: ELIZABETH WHITAKER; DIANA TOMOVA; CHRIS JOHNSON.

This Athletic Center is a Win for the Environment

2023 Best of Year Winner for Early Education

The country’s oldest Quaker school boasts a brand-new building to house its robust K-12 athletic program—one that also switch-hits as the heart of its academic campus in Philadelphia via a vibrant lobby/common space complete with a nutrition bar, store, student lounge, and study areas. Designed by EwingCole, a second-floor classroom with glass wall permitting views of the buzzy space below, plus a soaring geometric feature wall pairing oak veneer and acoustic panels combine to make the most of the airy double-height volume. Nestling half of the Graham Athletics & Wellness Center’s 87,000 square feet below-grade, meanwhile, minimized its impact on the landscape and the environment, reducing energy use and solar heat gain to boot.

Suzanne Tick: 2023 Interior Design Hall of Fame Inductee

Material innovator Suzanne Tick has the future on speed dial. She embraced sustainability before most of us knew what the word meant, developed a CEU on the post-gender society before it even happened, experimented with 3D knitting before it was a thing, and imbued the woven surfaces that surround commercial interiors with characteristics of transparency, digitalism, and illumination before we realized we needed them. Then there’s the fact that her New York–based textile brand, Luum, launched its Fabric of Space collection, with patterns based on star trails and the expanding universe, the very day the James Webb Space Telescope images of same were publicly released. “Everyone thought we were in cahoots with NASA!” she jokes.

No, Tick is not conspiring with the government’s space-research arm, but she has collaborated with a galaxy of big-name brands during her four-decade career: Tarkett, Tandus Centiva, and 3form are just a few for which she’s conceived upholstery and drapery fabrics, high-performance carpeting and broadloom, and cement-tile and LVT flooring. She has enjoyed a longstanding partnership with Skyline Design, for which she conceives etched panels that bring textile softness to hard glass, and maintains an active fine-art practice realizing tapestries, custom textiles, and experimental handweavings for such clients as the Gates Foundation and BlackRock.

Suzanne Tick on Her Futuristic Approach to Design

---

Get Ready for 2024: See what’s next for Interior Design‘s Hall of Fame event with a peek at what we’re planning for the 40th annual gala. Discover Hall of Fame details.

---

For Tick, Sustainability is Top of Mind

Her approach has always been holistic and sustainable, ranging from development of raw material and structures to revamping of manufacturing methods. At Luum, for instance, “The majority of what we do is to develop new fibers and invent constructions. That’s why our fabrics feel different.” Her handweavings also utilize novel materials—salvaged objects like dry-cleaning hangers. For a financial company commission, she’s currently warp-and-wefting two centuries’ worth of shredded ledgers; for a paint brand, she’s weaving cut-up sample discards.

Tick, a self-described “fourth-generation recycler,” comes about her salvage mindset honestly. Business at her dad’s scrap-metal yard was the main dinner table topic growing up. At the same time, her family was “very cultured and creative”—her mother was a graphic and set designer—and tapped into Eastern philosophy. “My dad had all the books: the Bhagavad Gita, a library of Ram Dass.” Also stacked on those shelves were her mom’s interiors magazines. Tick owes a lot to those glossies, which helped her home in on a vocational track when, late in her college tenure as a printmaker experimenting with etching fiber textures onto copper, she set about figuring out what the heck to do after graduation. “Flipping through them, I saw ads by Jack Lenor Larsen, Brunschwig et Fils, Scalamandré. I thought I could work for a company that makes fabrics like those—and that I had to move to New York to do it.”

Meditation Meets Design Innovation

Manhattan proved an energizing yet scary place at the time. “I arrived at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. Designers we were creating custom orders for would just stop calling us back.” To handle the stress, she tried Zen meditation, but it never stuck. She gave the pursuit of higher consciousness another try seven years ago, after a period of discontent despite her many achievements, which at this point included a TEDxNavesink talk and work exhibited at international museums. A last-minute opportunity to attend an introductory Vedic workshop coincided with a weeklong staycation, her first in 30-odd years. She found the mantra-based practice transformative, and since 2020 has been teaching it to others. It’s become a cornerstone of her studio culture that she credits with unlocking higher levels of collective creativity. “If I could get more firms to realize how incredible this practice is for design teams! Your awareness becomes open, everything becomes much clearer, you just see what needs to be done.”

Part of de-stressing her nervous system, she continues, has involved “figuring out what I can do to be of help.” She’s doubled down on her commitment to giving back via free weaving workshops and serving on the board of The Light Inside, which teaches meditation to prison inmates and corrections officers. Tick pays it forward to Mother Earth, too. Back in the ’90’s, she was the brains behind Resolution, the first-ever solution-dyed panel fabric (and the first Knoll Textile product to sell 1 million yards); today, her studio recycles all textile waste it produces (almost a ton annually) and has been instrumental in shifting our perception of circularity via envelope-pushing product designs attuned to nature yet equally informed by technology, craft, and human ingenuity.

Watch the Hall of Fame Documentary Featuring Suzanne Tick

Explore Textiles Design by Suzanne Tick

Installations by Suzanne Tick on Display