Dining Area | Photo by: Public
At the 2010 Hospitality Design Conference in Las Vegas I had the pleasure of attending a lecture hosted by the 30-something principals of AvroKo, the award winning New York City design firm responsible for Public, a restaurant in New York where patrons can rent out a mailbox where the chef will leave them a monthly bottle of wine and a personal note with food paring suggestions, recipes, or tasting notes.
They touched on everything from architecture to fine art and focused a lot on inspiration but what interested me most about their design approach is they insist on delivering a fully integrated design package. That is, if they are tasked with designing the hottest new NYC restaurant they may likely take on everything from the custom furniture and staff uniforms right on down to the design of the menu and wine labels.
This got me thinking about my own projects. It’s not unusual for designers to want control over multiple facets of design and yet so often project teams are fragmented. In healthcare design, for example, you may have an interior design firm, an architect, a signage or wayfinding consultant, and an art consultant all pulling for creative control. When design teams consist of numerous consultants great care must be taken to make sure everyone on board understands the themes carrying through the project. The lead design firm must set in place a variety of checks and balances favoring open dialog and regular design progress updates. Of course, there is no such thing is a true fail-safe.
Pencils | Photo by: Public
If project consultants are unwilling or unable to work toward the vision it can be difficult to guide their hand. Tight budgets and even tighter schedules add to the pressure and can affect coordination and the final outcome.
AvroKo’s answer to maintaining creative control is to remove the variables and do it themselves. I know what you’re thinking. Shouldn’t firms pick a specialty and stick with it? Business 101 tells you to do what you know… don’t be an expert in everything… find your niche. Perhaps this model is incomplete. Rather than do what you know, design firms can benefit from a hire those who know approach. Avroko’s executive staff is a varied quartet of architects, fine artists and graphic designers who merged allowing them to create award winning environments where details don’t have to be sacrificed due to the consultant structure. They have put together a creative team that spans all avenues of design so they can create the box and all the bits and pieces that go inside.
Assembling a design staff with truly diverse talents can be difficult and is probably more rare than we realize. Still, I imagine the possibilities are great. I wonder what could be achieved by marrying a branding and marketing firm with an architecture and interiors firm and maybe toss in a couple of Industrial Designers for fun.
Mailboxes | Photo by: Public
How exciting it must be to help a client achieve a fully integrated identity beyond its website, logo and letterhead but also to include its retail locations, corporate headquarters, conference booth and staff uniforms. I can imagine the creativity that would flow when furniture designers team up with fashion designers and web designers team up with architects. Just assembling such a team under one roof would be a real achievement but if it could be done the result could be a project perfectly coordinated and complete down to the very last detail. A perfect little package.
