Art & Culture

Designs for Life

Words by Steve Beale

1st July 2020

We intro you to the world’s top interior architects

Turn your living space into a cultural landmark with the help of our at-a-glance interior design directory.

David Adjaye
Adjaye Associates is arguably the most sought-after studio in the UK right now. Recent major projects include San Francisco Shipyards and The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC. But principal architect Sir David Adjaye OBE began his career designing living/work spaces in regenerated east London for top Brit artists Chris Ofili and Jake Chapman, in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, and residential projects are still very much part of the portfolio. Check out the studio’s new developments 70-73 Piccadilly in London and 130 William in NY to get a feel of what Britain’s new top architect can do for your new home.

Ken Fulk
If you like your man-caves in the modern style, this San Francisco-based wunderkind is your go-to guy. Noted for working with hip-hop superstar Pharrell Williams, Fulk mixes historical and pop art influences to eye-popping effect. Get the look with his Mr. Ken Fulk’s Magical World, or swing by St Joseph’s Arts Society in SF - Fulk’s base for operations, showcase, party venue, and boutique shopping strip - with studio spaces operating as incubators for rising local artists. Notoriously, he works ‘exclusively by referral’, so seek out a former client or friend.

John Pawson
The thinking HNWI’s choice and ‘King of Minimalism’ recently put together both the new London Design Museum and fashion designer Christopher Kane’s Mayfair retail outlet. Residential projects include Athens’ marvellous new Armonia Apartments and Tel Aviv’s Jaffa complex. The stand-out of the folio, though, is surely the New York apartment for design hotel guru, Ian Schrager.
johnpawson.com

Studio Peregalli
This Milan-based firm specialises in a contemporary take on the historical, “creating deeply poetic spaces that transcend the bounds of time,” according to The New York Times. Venetian villas, alpine lodges and Paris apartments retain their original character while finding new vitality, thanks to the studio’s inspired use of art and upholstery.
Notable projects include an apartment on Paris’ Rue Bonaparte for French fashionista Pierre Bergé, and a garden shed with a glass dome for celebrated San Francisco landscaper (and Bergé’s partner) Madison Cox.

Two’s Company
The duo of Gilly Craft – incumbent president of the British Institute of Interior Designers – and Nick Sutherland, specialises in the space where residential and ‘six-star’ luxury hotel design overlap. Working across both sectors means they’re very well informed about how high net worth individuals’ needs are evolving, and how the cutting-edge, high-end domestic technology and interiors markets are providing for them. Nick and Gilly recently designed ‘The Hotel Room of the Future’ for the Independent Hotel Show in London.

For all the inside info on these and other property developments, please contact [email protected]

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