18 Oct Q&A with Amy & Craig Smith of Portfolio for Hospitality
About The Designers
Serving as Principal of Portfolio for Hospitality, Craig Smith leads a dynamic and innovative team of architects and interior designers specializing in hotels, restaurants, conference centers and resorts. His thirty years of experience creating hospitality environments include a wide array of aesthetic styles and building types, locations, clients, and major hotel brands. Craig’s design language is adaptable but with an inherently masculine sense, evident in the range of projects comprising his Portfolio. The melding of architecture and design with the business and operations side of the hospitality industry provides a unique focus to his work and recognition by clients of the expertise he brings to each project.
Craig Smith, Principal of Portfolio for Hospitality. Amy Smith, Partner & Design Director of Portfolio for Hospitality
Amy Bentzen Smith is Partner and Director of Deisgn at Portfolio having been associated with the firm for over eighteen years and the industry for over twenty. She has headed many design teams for a wide range of project types and is essential to the success of the firm through her superior sense of style and design abilities. Amy is recognized throughout the hospitality design field as a force of innovative and thoughtful design.
About the Company
A nationally recognized hospitality design firm, Portfolio for Hospitality are experts in the design of hotels, resorts, restaurant and conference centers. Our projects portfolio show the varied properties we have completed from 100 room lifestyle projects through 1600 room mega hotels. From ground-up hotel design to repositioning existing properties, from major renovations to developing brand concepts, our experience throughout the many facets of hospitality informs our projects and benefits our clients end results. Portfolio’s focus has always been superior design in the aesthetic and planning of projects as well as the exceptional service that is embedded in our culture.
Marco Djallo via Unsplash
Where did you get your start as designers?
Craig: I started as an architect at a small firm doing everything from houses to factories to offices; after a few years I moved to a firm that specialized in hospitality design (when the field was in it’s infancy) and it freed my mind completely for design and that’s been my speciality since.
Amy: Growing up with an architect father I was exposed to design at a very young age. Because of those childhood contacts I was able to begin my career at a hospitality design firm that specialized in Native American casinos in the Northwest. Once exposed to the freedom of creativity in hospitality design, I never looked back!
What got you to start your own firm / What attracted you to Portfolio?
Craig: I thought I could do it better (running my own firm than working for someone else) and I have.
Amy: A move to Houston early in my career brought me to Portfolio (because of my love of and desire to stay in hospitality design). It was a great fit for me and I’ve been able to continually develop and sharpen my design skills as well as becoming Partner and Design Director in the firm in the past 18+ years.
How would you describe your design styles?
Craig’s design language is adaptable but with an inherently masculine sense. Amy’s design language is colorful but classic. Our designs are always focused on the experience and emotions of the spaces we design.
Hand Drawing of Litho for Portfolio Hospitality
Where do you draw your inspiration from?
No limits! We look at everything from architecture to fashion to retail to the experience of emotions and living life; it all wraps into what we like to think as a holistic approach – nothing is off limits.
Can you tell us about one project that you are extremely proud of?
Too many to count! From career defining projects we can point to very large hotels that we’ve had the honor to work on like the Hilton Anatole and the Roosevelt in NYC all the way to the smaller 100 room beach front Doubletree we worked on in Galveston TX; every project for us is unique and special. But it always seems to be the last project we completed that we are most proud of.
Are there any trends that you see potentially altering the industry?
From the design industry we’ve always said that the driver is the general public’s acceptance for design and yearning for more. From the hospitality side we see the drivers as more personal experiences for guests being what separates one hotel from another.
Is there another designer’s work in the industry that you admire? If yes, who and what do you admire?
We look to everyone but Amy specifically admires Roger Thomas because of the whimsical fun aspect of what he does but more importantly the extreme attention to every detail.
Pattern Inspiration
It seems we are always looking for a dramatic graphic pattern for each project we design, so the crisp, graphic aesthetic of a classic wood print was a natural for us. We love the beautiful, timeless and imperfect handmade look of the block print and have an appreciation for the method of reproducing images on fabric that’s been in existence for over 2,000 years. With roots in ancient China, Egypt, Assyria and India, the block print’s series of repetitive patterns represents a classic in textile prints for both fashion and interiors.
For more information, visit www.portfolioforhospitality.com or check them out on instagram.
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