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Get to know these 16 design and architecture talents, the latest additions to the AD100 list.
Bercy Chen Studio
With a growing portfolio of residential commissions in and around Austin, Thomas Bercy and Calvin Chen have established themselves as two of the Lone Star State’s foremost architectural voices. Their insights and influences nevertheless know no bounds. Drawing on their respective international backgrounds—Bercy is Belgian, Chen is Taiwanese by way of Australia—the two have honed a hands-on approach that extends from conception to completion.
In their words: “Our work is greatly influenced by vernacular precedents from various cultures, while maintaining respect for the particular contemporary contextual conditions.” Distilled into multiple structures, a cliffside house for a creative family (AD, July/August 2023) cultivates an especially intimate connection to the landscape. “It was a way to explore how to coexist with nature,” says Chen, alluding to the firm’s long-standing commitment to sustainability.—Sam Cochran
Bryan O’Sullivan Studio
Since launching his firm a decade ago, Bryan O’Sullivan has established his name conceiving hospitality hit after hit—at such iconic locales as Claridge’s, the Connaught, and the Berkeley—in his adopted hometown of London. Along the way, this international talent has also built a robust portfolio of private residential commissions, including a 1924 mansion in Paris, a 230-foot yacht, and a stunning home for his own young family in London’s iconic Barbican complex (AD, November 2023). Whatever the project, O’Sullivan and his team begin with research— into context, into craft, and most importantly into history. “We arrive at a concept and then we drill down,” notes the Irish-born designer, who recently adapted bespoke furniture for past projects into a debut furniture line. That collection and other career highlights to date all appear in his first book, hitting shelves this March.—S.C.
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Geremia Design
Lauren Geremia began her professional journey armed with a degree in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design, and since the founding of her namesake firm in 2006, art has remained central to her practice. “We approach design the same way that we would fine art. We love texture and color, and we rely on strong concepts,” says the San Francisco–based talent, whose rise in the design world paralleled that of her early tech clients such as Dropbox and Instagram. Geremia’s inspired renovation of a classic Julia Morgan house in Berkeley (AD July/August 2023) exemplifies this ethos.
“We source art in the beginning stages of a project as a connection point in the narrative and a strong material reference,” notes the designer, who is currently applying her art-centered philosophy to houses across the Bay Area and beyond, including projects in Los Angeles, Yosemite, and Lake Tahoe.—Mayer Rus
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Hugo Toro
Hugo Toro’s name landed on many radars in 2022, when the French arts institution Villa Albertine chose him to redo a space in its illustrious NYC headquarters—Stanford White’s landmarked Payne Whitney Mansion, a Gilded Age icon. “I like to engage with traces of the past, as a way of preserving the soul of a place,” the French Mexican designer has said, whose green-and-gold scheme included a restoration of the room’s painted, vaulted ceilings and glazed terra-cotta-tiled floors.
In other projects—a revamp of the Victorian-era Midland Grand Dining Room and Gothic Bar in London; Orient Express’s forthcoming La Minerva hotel in a 17th-century Roman palace—Toro crafts worlds that feel simultaneously old and new, always prioritizing materials and finishes. Even within smaller footprints, such as that of his own compact, yet luxe 1960s Paris pad (AD, November 2023), Toro designs to maximize every square inch.—H.M.
Laura Gonzalez
At Laura Gonzalez’s Right Bank atelier (AD, September 2023) it’s easy to understand her modus operandi: luxurious layers of color and pattern—always with a touch of whimsy. Last year was a busy one for the designer, in business since 2004: She revamped Cartier’s NYC flagship, a mansion on Fifth Avenue, crafting a warm but super-luxe home for the storied jeweler. Meanwhile, she compiled some of her most electrifying projects into her first book, Laura Gonzalez: Interieurs. While she’s best known for her residential-feeling commercial and hospitality spaces (in recent years she has redone the interiors of Paris landmarks like Lapérouse and the Saint James Paris hotel), Gonzalez has serious range. She also has a broad line of furniture, sold by The Invisible Collection, and a handful of recently completed private homes. The connective tissue between it all? “I always revisit the classics,” she says.—H.M.
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Lina Ghotmeh—Architecture
2023 was a breakout year for Lebanese-born architect Lina Ghotmeh. In London, she unveiled her Serpentine Pavilion, a feat of community building and eco-friendly construction, with thin supports reminiscent of leaf veins and a pleated roof to shield gatherings. And in Normandy, she completed a low-carbon, energy-positive saddle workshop for Hermès (AD, September 2023). Both commissions expand upon her interests in handcraft, sustainability, and what she calls “the archaeology of the future,” wherein “every new gesture is drawn from the traces of the past.”
Ghotmeh credits that fascination with ruins to her childhood in Beirut, a city in constant transition. These days, she’s catalyzing change around the world, from an art museum for Saudi Arabia’s AlUla cultural site to a tower in Montpellier, France. All the firm’s projects, she notes, “emerge as exquisite interventions that enliven memories and senses.”—S.C.
Nickey Kehoe
All one needs to know about the sensibility and taste of interior/product designers Todd Nickey and Amy Kehoe is on full, brilliant display at the designers’ namesake Los Angeles home-furnishings mecca, long a treasured resource for the professional design community and savvy clients. (New York City residents will be happy to learn that an outpost will be opening there this spring.) “We are uncommonly sensitive to the ways in which a space can elevate the senses, enhance memories, and become not merely a set piece but a main character in the stories of our clients’ lives,” the duo says of their soulful, richly layered approach, which has captured the fancy of entertainment-industry clients such as Sarah Paulson (AD, March 2023), Naomi and Adam Scott, and Kathryn Hahn and Ethan Sandler. In addition to rolling out product introductions, the designers are currently flexing their creative muscles in houses across LA.—M.R.
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Office of BC
Since Jerome Byron and Lindsey Chan established their under-the-radar firm in 2020, whispers of their artful, context-driven work—and star-studded client list—have wafted through Los Angeles. Before the duo met in the offices of design firm Willo Perron, Byron cut his teeth at Kéré Architecture and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and Chan worked for designer Anna Karlin. It was an eye-catching, cedar-clad guesthouse (AD, March 2021)—masterminded by Byron with an assist from Chan—where they first joined forces, unofficially. Together, they bring an outside-the-box approach to custom commissions in myriad settings, be it a 1950s cabin, a wine bar (Stir Crazy), or a hair salon (Bleach London); for the last, they had sink stations carved from black marble. “Our designs are driven by artistic sensitivity and collaboration, with an emphasis on craftsmanship,” they explain of their highly nuanced approach.—Hannah Martin
Oliver Freundlich Design
Connection and collaboration are the magic ingredients behind architectural designer Oliver Freundlich and his team’s craft-forward approach. “The goal is to create spaces that are rooted in a sense of place and ultimately reflective of the lives within them,” he says. This innate desire to materialize owners’ lifestyles and aspirations into homes has earned him a formidable repertoire of clients since founding his namesake firm 13 years ago.
Homes such as the West Village residence of Julianne Moore and Bart Freundlich (AD, November 2017) and the 1870s Brooklyn town house of photographer R.A. McBride and her family (AD, June 2023) reveal a talent for weaving new stories into a space while simultaneously honoring the building’s history.—Livia Caligor
REX
This past year, Joshua Ramus of REX didn’t just step into the spotlight, he designed the stage. At Manhattan’s new Perelman Performing Arts Center (AD, July/August 2023), the architect pioneered three venues that can merge or mutate into 10 proportions and more than 60 layouts for programs of all kinds. Wrapped in 4,896 slabs of translucent marble, the building glows from within, its cubic form a bold cultural beacon for the World Trade Center site. Meanwhile at Brown University, he achieved another flexible triumph, completing a theater that can assume five different configurations.
“REX aspires to produce inventive designs so functionally specific that they offer inspiring aesthetic experiences,” Ramus notes of his approach, which extends to upcoming residential and commercial projects. “Architecture should actively empower its users and communities.”—S.C.
Ryan Lawson
Nuance! These days it’s an increasingly lost art. Not so in the braided and enchanting work of Ryan Lawson, an Arkansas native who has quietly been leaving his mark on the New York City design scene for nearly two decades. “We appreciate subtlety and craftsmanship, ensuring that every element, from material selections to furniture and lighting design, is completed with intention,” he says of his research-driven approach, which is rooted in both historical references and old-school decorative flair. “We focus on the large vision and the small details in tandem, to ensure that our interiors are complex and robust but also meticulously executed.”
Mission very much accomplished in his recent breakthrough performance, a mic-drop update to a Manhattan loft that layers allusions to Scarpa, Bo Bardi, Buatta, and more (AD, October 2023). Says Lawson: “We work to transcend trends and fads, to make spaces that stand the test of time.”—S.C.
Sachs Lindores Architecture, Interiors
Design firms boasting client lists chockablock with high-profile tastemakers seem to possess a specific superpower that allows them to assert a refined, clearly articulated vision while synthesizing the complex demands of those renowned for their own sensibilities and rigor. And so it is for designer Daniel Sachs and architect Kevin Lindores, who met while working for Frank Gehry in Los Angeles. The duo has tackled a range of projects for artists on the order of Helen Marden and her late husband, Brice Marden, Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin (AD, October 2011 and April 2023), Philip Taaffe, and David Salle.
And the Berkshires farmhouse they designed for Victoria and Jed Cairo (AD, June 2021) exemplifies their erudite eclecticism. Given their encyclopedic knowledge of design history, it’s not surprising that Sachs and Lindores describe their aspirations by citing the first line of the Bauhaus Manifesto of 1919: “The ultimate aim of all visual arts is the complete building!”—M.R.
Sally Breer World
Designer Sally Breer first captured the attention of young Hollywood with a philosophy that eschews received ideas and stale formulas in favor of intuitive, freewheeling interiors animated with a palpable sense of whimsy and delight. Her unconventional approach has garnered the patronage of high-profile creatives—including Zazie Beetz and David Rysdahl, Jordan Peele and Chelsea Peretti, and Parachute founder Ariel Kaye (AD, October 2023)—as well as adventurous hoteliers and other entrepreneurs seeking a fresh perspective. “Having not trained professionally in interior design, I haven’t inherited any formal rules that I need to unlearn, which lets us color outside of the lines,” Breer insists. “Coloring books are so boring!”—M.R.
Sara Story Design
“Bold, comfortable, curated, layered with amazing art and pops of color,” is how interior designer Sara Story describes the homes she creates for her clients—her career for the past 20 years. But perhaps the best example is her own super-personal New York City town house (AD, June 2023), where a wicker side table shaped like a grasshopper scoots up to a groovy 1970s sofa, or a tubular steel Mies van de Rohe chair sits with an antique French desk. She injects her projects—recently completed homes include a party-perfect pad in Austin and a sumptuous residence at the New York landmark the Plaza—with the same playful irreverence. It’s all delightful fodder for her new book, The Art of Home, which was published this past September.—H.M.
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Sarah Sherman Samuel Inc.
Celebrating the unexpected and the imperfect, Sarah Sherman Samuel marries interiors, architecture, art, and product design in her practice. At the core of her philosophy is the idea that a home is “a sanctuary whose story will unfold alongside its owners.” Since founding her studio in 2014, her distinctly uncontrived yet refined aesthetic has racked up a roster of devoted clients, including Mandy Moore and Taylor Goldsmith (AD, July/August 2018) and Nacho Figueras and Delfina Blaquier (AD, June 2023). This year, she will release an outdoor seating collection for her ongoing line for Lulu and Georgia and debut a new product assortment for SSS Atelier, a virtual gallery showcasing her in-house furniture collection and original artwork, as well as curated vintage finds.—L.C.
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Yinka Ilori
Color and pattern are the dazzling protagonists of Yinka Ilori’s multidisciplinary practice, which ranges from plates to pavilions. The British Nigerian artist, who studied at London Metropolitan University, launched his business in 2011, getting people’s attention with a series of happy chairs, made from reclaimed cast-off furniture given a little paint and TLC (AD, February 2018). Since then, Ilori has expanded his scale drastically. A retrospective of his practice that was mounted this past year at London’s Design Museum showed the breadth of his output, which now includes a Technicolor basketball court in London and a temporary skate park in Miami Beach. Ilori calls his work “humorous, provocative, and playful,” explaining that, in his view, “design can bring communities together.”—H.M.
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The AD100 appears in AD’s January issue. Never miss an issue when you subscribe to AD.
