Hospitality Design - May 2018 - 146

interview rockwell group

theatrical analogies-not looking theatrical,
but understanding there's an audience and
there are performers. In public spaces, you
switch off from one to the other. Theater was
a part of research for me. I was a fan of it.
What pushed me and gave me the courage to
jump into theater was [lighting designer and
producer] Jules Fisher, a theater buddy of
mine. I would critique the sets and say that
didn't make sense, and he said to me, 'You're
so smart. Why aren't you doing sets?' For two
or three years, I met with every director there
was. Two things happened. First, I started to
understand that what directors were interested
in were transitions. What's interesting about
restaurants is also transitions-how you enter
from the street. The other thing was they were
interested in narrative-what's the backstory?
In the world of a set, you're supporting a story,
you're not telling a story. That's the same way
we approach restaurants-it was the chef's
story we were telling.
SS: I also think that in the way you look at
lighting, it isn't just in an architectural way,
it often comes from the theater. The sense of
layering that we think about in our projects is
inspired by that storytelling.
DR: We just finished the Helen Hayes Theater
[on Broadway in New York], which I'm excited
about because it's unique. We used to define
what we wanted to do by firsts, but after 30
years there aren't that many firsts left. There's
always some first you can find in the project,
and the Helen Hayes was restoring a 106-yearold theater, giving us the chance to pull
together so many things to create something
that honors the past but looks to the future.

At the new location of Danny Meyer's venerated Union
Square Café, a lighter, airier design pervades

On success
DR: We are building on things we've done
before, so there's more mastery of certain
things, which allows us to go deeper. It's a
profound thing to create places where people
come together and congregate. It's what makes
cities livable.
SS: This is a golden age of people coming
together; it's rarer and rarer, but it's more
meaningful when they do. A lot of people ask
us how we do things. When I go back and think
about it, I don't think we asked how to do it. We
just did it. Early on, we committed to it and we
knew it was an interesting idea.
DR: If we were to list the 10 projects we're
doing right now or we did in the last year, I
don't think 10 or 15 years ago we could have
done Union Square or Nobu to the extent we
did, or TAO, or Waterline Square [a residential
complex in New York] where we are doing
100,000 square feet of amenity space. That

146

May 2018 hospitalitydesign.com

The Shed comprises 200,000 square feet
designed to operate in various configurations
while offering multiple events at the same time

comes from a breadth of experience and
willingness to invent. If you work on it, you get
better at those things and you start adding on
new components.
GK: And taking risks.
DR: You can't continue to be self-referential.
You have to take chances. You can't be safe
in the projects you take on. You have to pay
attention to where the open space is in the world
and in the project. We're now doing smaller
projects like concrete tiles and bigger projects
like a masterplan for a whole neighborhood in
San Francisco. We're doing a project like the

Shed, which is 200,000 square feet, and we did
the Helen Hayes theater, which is teeny. We
see the logic of those polar opposites-it is what
will define our success.
GK: It's also about staying present, focusing
on what you have now, and making it the best
thing possible. It's not just focusing on that
[next thing] out there, because you're never
going to fulfill what you need to do.
DR: That's a very good point. Our future is
defined by what we're doing right now and how
that resonates. I feel like we're just hitting our
stride. hd

Photo by EMILY ANDREWS and rendering courtesy of DILLER SCOFIDIO + RENFRO in collaboration with ROCKWELL GROUP

perspectives

http://www.hospitalitydesign.com

Hospitality Design - May 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Hospitality Design - May 2018