Audio Links:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0A2XOJvb6mGqEPYJ5bilPX
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/defining-hospitality-podcast/id157359638
Drew Stewart is an architect, interior designer, and occasional developer, and a founding partner and director of construction and development at INC Architecture & Design. He has spent 20 years growing the New York studio into a powerhouse, earning a spot in the Interior Design Hall of Fame along the way. His work includes the TWA Hotel, 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge, and the Atlas Hotel at Harvard, and he is celebrating the milestone with a monograph, Us Is More, hitting shelves TODAY October 14th.
Takeaways:
Make it frictionless. Look at every point where you touch a client, guest, or stakeholder and ask where you can take effort away from them. Small moments of ease add up to real hospitality.
Start from a blank slate. Even with a brief in hand, step back and reimagine the problem before you solve it. Fresh eyes catch challenges that a familiar process will miss.
Build a team of different talents and give everyone a voice. Skip the single name on the door and make sure your most junior person speaks as much as your most senior one. The best ideas come from the collective.
Learn the other side’s job. Understanding architects, designers, and developers makes you a better partner, because you stop creating problems for the people you work with. Empathy is hospitality in your business relationships too.
Enhance the world that’s already there. When you work with an iconic space, don’t compete with it. Honor what makes it special and add just enough seasoning.
Reach out to Dan on LinkedIn or hit reply on the Substack to share what you’re working on.
“Having creative, thoughtful people across the table turns out to be the single most important thing about any project.” - Drew Stuart
Impact estimates vary by project. For the most up-to-date figures, please refer to the transcript
Connect with Drew:
Guest’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drew-stuart-22bb286/
Guests Website: https://inc.nyc/
Us is More Book: https://a.co/d/01ctnv2F
🏨✨ Defining Hospitality is Sponsored by BERMANFALK
Check out their impact page! 🌍🌱 https://www.bermanfalk.com/impact/