Alumni at Stonehill Taylor Keep on Designing

On the brink of the COVID-19 outbreak in New York City, we sat down with three alumni at Stonehill Taylor—Ara Kim ’19 (MFA-1), interior designer; Tory Knoph ’11 (BFA), senior interior designer and the interiors outreach coordinator; and Mayuko Shibata ’11 (BFA), senior interior designer—to discuss their careers and recent projects. During the lockdown, we spoke with the firm’s interiors principal, Sara Duffy, about how the company is adapting and looking toward the future of hospitality design in this uncertain time.

When we visited the elegantly utilitarian offices of Stonehill Taylor to interview three of the five NYSID alumni working for the firm, we were greeted warmly, but shook no one’s hand. That’s because it was the second week of March 2020; tension and uncertainty hung in the air after the emergence of COVID-19 in New York. Still, the alumni we interviewed, Ara Kim, Tory Knoph, and Mayuko Shibata, seemed to take pleasure in discussing their work on exciting hotel projects around the globe. One thing was clear: These interior designers love what they do.

Within days of the interviews and photo shoot for this article, Stonehill Taylor shut down its physical offices in response to the pandemic. All project teams continued their work remotely thanks to the project management and collaborative tools that Stonehill Taylor put in place. In spite of the disruption, the company looks to the future. “The travel industry and its many facets—including hospitality architecture and design—are destined to rebound and play an important role in jump-starting the economy and in reconnecting people,” says Sara Duffy, Stonehill Taylor’s interiors principal. “The recovery that the world faces is not simply an economic one; it’s also a renewal of the human spirit and a return to hope, joy, and optimism. The hospitality industry has always been associated with these values. On the other side of this crisis, people will return to travel and seek adventure and comfort in the hotel experience.”

Ara Kim ’19 (MFA-1), Tory Knoph ’11 (BFA), Mayuko Shibata ’11 (BFA), Naoko Yamazaki ’10 (BFA)/’11 (MPS-S)/’12 (MPS-L)/ ’14 (MFA-2), and Teng Yang ’14 (MPS-H) are five alumni who currently work in the interiors department at Stonehill Taylor. Several other NYSID graduates have worked at the firm in recent years. The NYC-based firm employs just over 70 people, yet works on approximately 65 interior design and architecture projects every year. The interior design studios create one-of-a-kind destinations not only in new construction but often through the adaptive reuse of historic and/or landmarked buildings. Says Duffy, “Stonehill Taylor is always in search of talent with the right mix of a great attitude, exemplary design skills, and strong knowledge of the needed software. In our work, we must become true storytellers.”

Tory Knoph ’11 (BFA): Every Project Is a Narrative

Tory Knoph ’11 (BFA) began at Stonehill Taylor as an intern in 2010 and started full time when she graduated in 2011. Now a senior designer, she’s been at the firm for the duration of her career. What she’s learned along the way is this: “There should always be storytelling behind hospitality design. We start our projects with a concept or a story based on the history of the area. That concept guides us, and we work with our PR and branding people to weave the story through the design, from the largest to the smallest detail. If there is a design dilemma, we revert to our original concept and find our solutions there.”

One of Knoph’s favorite recent projects is the Saint Kate Arts Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, because the concept behind the hotel is so singular. The client was the Marcus family, collectors and philanthropists who are heavily involved in the arts scene of Milwaukee. Says Knoph, “The hotel is named after Saint Catherine, the patron saint of the arts. The clients came to us with the concept of a boutique hotel for the arts and the performing arts, and our job was to interpret that and bring it to life.” The hotel was designed as a livable art museum and performance center. Says Knoph, “We kept the millwork of the historic building, but painted it white. We added concrete floors. We made the background uniform so the art would pop.” Indeed, the concept for the entire lobby was created around Big Piney, a bronze “ghost horse” by the well-known sculptor Deborah Butterfield. Working with Linda Marcus and the hotel’s curator, Maureen Ragalie, Knoph’s team used art from local artists and artisans in the guest rooms, and pieces from internationally known artists in the public spaces.

Though the hotel offers only 219 rooms, the scale of the Saint Kate project was significant because of the public spaces. Knoph’s team designed four galleries and a black box theater called the Arc Theatre within the hotel, as well as pop-up performance spaces for live theater throughout the building. They designed five immersive artist suites (in collaboration with various local artists, each of whom represents multiple mediums and styles). Her team also added four new food and beverage spaces and revamped the all-day restaurant, Aria. The idea was to connect the arts hotel space and restaurants to the Marcus Performing Arts Center across the street, and the many arts institutions in the neighborhood, including the Milwaukee Ballet and the Museum of Wisconsin Art. Says Knoph, “Our task was creating a connecting point for downtown performing arts and gallery spaces.” A project of this kind can be an engine in the economic revitalization of a city.

In her role, Knoph is guided by her studio director, yet functions as the lead on specific projects, managing the day-to-day details of the design process and communication with the client. As the company’s official interiors outreach coordinator, she travels to conferences to interface with potential clients and unearth new vendors. As Knoph looks back at her career at Stonehill Taylor, she especially values her early years as an intern. She says, “My advice to emerging designers is to get an internship or multiple internships. Working as an intern in the materials library at Stonehill Taylor, I learned so much by folding fabrics, putting things away, really understanding the difference between a quartz and a marble. Help out doing the menial things and you will learn, even before you have mastered Revit or AutoCAD.”

Ara Kim ’19 (MFA-1): Celebrate the Spirit of Travel

When Ara Kim ’19 (MFA-1) landed an internship at Stonehill Taylor during her second year at NYSID, she didn’t know what to expect. She couldn’t predict whether she’d have all the skills to hit the ground running at the buzzing architecture and interior design firm. As it turns out, she landed in the middle of a dream project. She worked with the team that designed and executed all of the interiors of the TWA Hotel at JFK International Airport, a former terminal and landmarked structure designed in 1962 by the architect Eero Saarinen. She learned about the spectacularly sinuous building—it has no right angles—in her design history class at NYSID.

Kim took on many of the duties typical to interns, including organizing the company’s materials library. Still, she got to work on the design of the fitness center at the TWA Hotel, carrying over the mid-century motif that celebrated the glory days of air travel into details like tambour wood paneling and the deep red of the TWA logo. “I thought to myself, ‘Who gets to do this their first time out, as an intern?’” says Kim, “I knew then that I wanted to work at Stonehill Taylor.” Kim interned at Stonehill Taylor for three semesters. It was her first and only internship. She says, “I didn’t struggle in my internship because there were a lot of similarities between school work and working reality. Also, people at Stonehill Taylor will always help you if you have a question.” She was hired full time upon her graduation in 2019.

One of the things Kim values most about her education is that NYSID required her to experience every sector of interior design. She says, “I got a solid foundation in residential, healthcare, workplace, and hospitality, so when it came time to find a direction, I was able to make an educated decision. Hospitality design is conceptually focused, and custom furniture pieces are important to what we do. By the time I graduated, I knew hospitality design suited me.”

Kim and her team are currently working on the renovation of the iconic and historically registered Hamilton Hotel in Washington, DC. The hotel takes its name from Alexander Hamilton’s daughter, Eliza Hamilton Holly, who was a friend of the hotel’s original owner. The story of Ms. Hamilton Holly is woven into the interior design, as are Beaux-Arts details that refer to the heyday of the Hamilton Hotel during the 1920s and 1930s, when it was the place to make deals for DC’s political elite. One of the greatest challenges of this project was to adapt an adjacent Masonic temple, the Almas Temple, into a ballroom and public event space for the hotel. The clients wanted to use the space for everything from government summits to weddings, so Kim’s team had to create an extremely flexible space. “We created a plan that will give the clients optimal control over the environment.”

Mayuko Shibata ’11 (BFA): Create Theatrical Moments

Mayuko Shibata ’11 (BFA), senior interior designer at Stonehill Taylor, started at the company eleven months ago, after taking a brief break to stay at home during the first months of her daughter’s life. After she graduated from the BFA program in 2011, Shibata worked at Meyer Davis and Yabu Pushelberg. With a background in both hospitality and residential interior design, her residential sensibility has informed her design of hospitality spaces. Her re-entry into her design career at Stonehill Taylor has been both intense and intensely fulfilling, as she is one of the lead designers working on the Raffles Boston Back Bay Hotel & Residences. The 33-story property includes 147 hotel rooms and suites, 146 residences, six food and beverage venues, a state-of-the-art spa with a fitness club and 20-meter indoor pool, expansive meeting and event spaces, and a two-story sky lobby perched high above Copley Square.

Raffles is one of the most famous luxury hotels in Singapore, so for this outpost, the first in the U.S., her team aims to deliver over-the-top luxury with rich, textural materials, while adding a uniquely Bostonian twist. Though the exterior of the building is a modern “glass box skyscraper,” the interiors will combine a modern aesthetic with references to Boston Back Bay history, specifically the life of Paul Revere. Few know Revere was a metalsmith and entrepreneur who forged rolled-copper sheathing for naval vessels. Shibata says, “That’s why there are copper details throughout the project, as well as a mural that reflects the history of the neighborhood.”

According to Shibata, clients in hospitality consistently want “Instagrammable moments.” She believes this request gets to the heart of what hotel design should do—create theatrical moments in the space that users instantly associate with the hotel brand and want to share. NYSID Associate Dean Barbara Lowenthal calls this tradition, “a welcomeness to voyeurism in hotel design.” For Raffles, Shibata’s team is designing a dramatic element that creates a sense of place—an enormous staircase with a glass wall and metal frame she hopes will be a form of visual branding for the property.

Shibata reflects, “Hospitality is definitely an interesting sector of design because it’s so conceptual and creative. It’s demanding, for sure, but it’s worth it. At the end of the day, you get to see people enjoying the space you created.”

We Are All Connected

NYSID’s Office of Academic Affairs and its Board of Trustees are in close contact with many hospitality design leaders as the industry responds to the pandemic. Our curriculum changes the industry and is changed by it. Hospitality design has always been about globalism and the celebration of cultures. Leaders in the field believe it will be even more centered on these values in the future. “Hospitality design post-pandemic will be more personal, with a deeper emphasis on providing a relaxed, secure, and comfortable series of spaces,” predicts NYSID Trustee Susan Nagle, a hospitality interior designer with decades of experience designing restaurants and hotels. “Also, hospitality designers will be more embracing of the environment, with natural materials being featured prominently, thereby creating an intimate sense of space while conveying the true spirit of hospitality: We are all connected.”

Branded Hotel Curriculum

NYSID recently added a branded hotel project to the BFA Contract Design II studio, and it’s become popular with students. Barbara Weinreich, NYSID’s director of undergraduate programs and an expert in retail design who designed flagship stores for Ralph Lauren, is the creator of this project. “It’s a trend for existing brands to create hotels. We see this with the new West Elm and Equinox hotels, for example,” Weinreich says. “The idea is for students to analyze an existing brand that does not have a hotel already attached to it, such as Tesla, Godiva, or Alexander McQueen, and come up with a brand story that either reinforces or reinvigorates the brand. The students need to apply this brand story to all kinds of experiences within the hotel, from a lobby to a guest room, to a retail space.”