ROOM's "Designers on Design" Series Returns with Danu Kennedy and Paolo Ferrari

ROOM’s video series “Designers on Design” has debuted its second episode, featuring New York-based interior designer and partner at Parts and Labor Design, Danu Kennedy, and internationally acclaimed designer Paolo Ferrari. Released in coordination with BDNY, this edition follows an insightful premiere episode timed to ICFF this May, that placed Ghislaine Viñas in conversation with Rodolfo Agrella. From the developers of purpose-built modular architecture and soundproof office pods, the series’ greatest strength is allowing designers the opportunity to speak for themselves. In fact, this thirty-minute episode was edited down from an hour-and-a-half-long conversation.

From a narrative perspective, episode two commences with Kennedy and Ferrari’s origin stories—tracing the former’s early career in residential through her path into hospitality design, all following a childhood in remote New Zealand. Kennedy understands that a sense of location drives her work. “What are you giving to the social environment that you’re in?” she asks in the episode. “I see hotels in particular as the new town square.” Kennedy’s hospitality projects have stretched from Moab to the Napa Valley and Nantucket.

For Ferrari, who grew up in Toronto, there’s motivation in the vastness of creation. “You have so much flexibility to create these entire worlds,” he says of his hospitality projects. He’s constructed an impressive array of interior worlds, from Saudi Arabia’s Desert Rock Resort to Shebara on the Red Sea, and Moncayo, Auberge Resorts Collection in Puerto Rico. All the while, he still draws inspiration from his father’s woodworking hobby that he witnessed as a child.

Both designers, through their distinct processes, try to pinpoint the big idea that drives a project’s narrative before layering in the emotional attributes. From the history of film to the culinary explorations of Ferran Adrià, cultural reference points inform the way they translate curiosity into a complete project. It’s the episode’s conclusion—on the future of hospitality and the way that design shifts people’s lives—that solidifies its merit. Once again, ROOM has captured and shared exclusive insight.