5 Iconic female interior designers, who are they?
From Patricia Urquiola to architect Sanaa, learn about influential female interior designers and architects globally.
Leanne Ford
Known as the host of the HGTV DIY show, Leanne Ford is also famous for her ability to transform any mid-range home into a Parisian pied-à-terre retreat.
Leanne Ford began her career at Betsey Johnson in the early 2000s, making a seamless transition from fashion work to interior design. Leanne became famous for her project to renovate a midcentury modern house in Sewickley Heights, and she and her brother Steve later appeared on the HGTV show Restored by the Fords, where the they undertook the house remodeling and gained a lot of fame.
Her generous yet rustic personality has attracted American users. It's easy to see that Leanne loves Bauhaus and Neo-Classical styles. “I tend not to listen to anyone and create what I think is beautiful. You will live with this piece of furniture and if all goes well, in 20 years it will still make you feel good,” she says.
Leanne is currently working with many furniture brands such as Crate & Barrel, to create a complete collection for the home, The Origins Collection is one of the latest collections for the brand to be introduced.
Kelly Wearstler
Kelly Wearstler opened her interior design company in 1995, and during her illustrious career, she designed many hotels and high-end personal, commercial, retail and resort living spaces. Keyy's style is to combine colour with complexity and spontaneity to create luxurious and vibrant rooms.
Known for his astute combinations of materials and inspirations, Wearstler uses his creations to powerfully tell stories. Her strengths are her skilful use of materials, her ability to combine many historical styles and her ability to create surprises. She has a strong passion for natural materials and strives to reduce the carbon footprint of her designs.
Kelly Wearstler almost never fails to overwhelm viewers. Her approach to design is melodramatic, combining vivid colours, whimsical shapes and surprising motifs. Her sophistication and surprising combinations elevate every room she designs.
However, Wearstler doesn't just focus on brilliance and prominence. She is known for her ability to pull neutral colours and draw attention to outdoor spaces without making designs flashy or overdone.
“My aesthetic is more about mixing, always something old and something new, raw and refined, masculine and feminine.”
Patricia Urquiola
Born in Spain, Patricia Urquiola currently works in Milan. One of the most famous interior designers of modern times, Urquiola is primarily known for her commercial interior designs and projects, combining poetry and playfulness with utilitarian elements.
Her work includes designing for brands such as Moroso, Molteni & C, Kartell, Flos and Foscarini, among others.
Patricia Urquiola's studio creates interior works and architectural projects that take into account the changing workplace and production cycles. Urquiola begins every project to integrate emotion into its designs by developing an understanding relationship with users. Her goal is to establish connections between objects or spaces and the people who use them or who are nearby.
Urquiola espouses an innovative design philosophy that integrates social, technological and humanistic perspectives. She creates connections between industry and craftsmanship as she is a strong advocate of giving discarded materials a second life through recycling. Today, she is one of the typical faces in the fields of furniture, lighting and decoration.
Studiopepe
Chiara Di Pinto (born in Milan in 1976) and Arianna Lelli Mami (born in Desio in 1975) studied at the same university, both obtained degrees in Industrial Design from the Polytechnic School of Milan and founded Studiopepe in Milan in 2006. This studio is an architectural design, graphic communication, installation and creative direction practice, they are very famous for their approach.
The symbols and culture that inspire their style are eclectic. Studiopepe has sought inspiration from the forms, colours and visions of Italian design from the 1950s and 1960s, from which they experimented with new aesthetic norms and created projects that demanded graphic quality. and sculpture. They work with design companies to develop interior design projects, hotels, stores, showrooms, exhibition booths, and take photos for prestigious magazines.
Studiopepe is also known for its work on the Republic of Fritz Hansen's Milanese store. The designer duo also reimagined the Kvadrat installation to launch the Raf Simons fabric collection. Their partnership with premium leather furniture brand Baxter has helped elevate their career and recognition.
The two create furniture for Tacchini and design carpets for CC-Tapis. They recently collaborated with Ethimo to create the “Sling Chair”, a garden armchair for which they won the 2021 Archiproducts Design Award, in addition to awards received from Frame Magazine in 2019 and Wallpaper* Design Award 2021.
Their designs for Essential Home include a collection of sofas, armchairs, and TV tables. The “Happy Few Collection” for bespoke furniture combines modern aesthetics with organic details, where eye-catching contrasts make each piece stand out.
“We see a lot of Italian connections in Portugal and it's interesting, there's a passion for wood craftsmanship, sculpting techniques and other materials like glass or ceramics. All of these elements inspired us to experiment with them into a design with a modern twist. It was truly fascinating to observe the factory workers and their passion for their craft. We were so influenced by their passion that we decided to test them.”
Sanaa
This year's Jane Drew Architecture Prize goes to architect Kazuyo Sejima, who was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize for elevating the status of female designers in the field.
Sejima rose to fame in 1995, when she and Japanese architect Ryue Nishizawa co-founded the Tokyo-based architecture firm SANAA. Every year, Architectural Review and Architects awards the W Awards, formerly known as the Women in Architecture Awards, which include the Jane Drew Award. Named after pioneering modernist designer Jane Drew, Sejima joins the ranks of previous award-winning architects, including Denise Scott Brown and Yasmeen Lari.
Sejima, born in 1956, attended Japan Women's University to pursue architecture before starting her career with Toyo Ito. In 1987, she opened her studio, Kazuyo Sejima & Associates, where Nishizawa worked while a student studying architecture at Yokohama National University.
Their studio has achieved international recognition and important projects, including the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, designed in 2004. After Zaha Hadid, Sejima became the second woman two won the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize when the studio won the award in 2010.
“In addition to experimenting with form, structure and materials in her work, Sejima is one of very few female architects to have made a name for herself on the international stage,” said The Architectural Review editor Manon Mollard. international".
The Rolex Learning Center in Switzerland, the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, and more recently Sydney Modern—an extension of the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Australia—are some of SANAA's other high-profile projects . Additionally, Sejima is a designer in her own right; Outside of SANAA, she designed a series of versatile bags for Prada and a train with giant windows. In 2022, the Japan Art Association honored SANAA with the Praemium Imperiale Award.
Rossana Hu
After working under Ralph Lerner and Michael Graves, Rossana Hu began her career at Architects Collaborative in San Francisco.
In 2004, she and Lyndon Neri co-founded Neri&Hu Research and Design Office, where Lyndon Neri later became her husband. The company is renowned for revitalizing historic locations, having completed numerous projects in master planning, architecture, product and interior design, and branding.
These locations include Waterhouse at South Bund in Shanghai, Tsingpu Yangzhou Retreat in Yangzhou and Nantou City Guesthouse in Shenzhen. There have been two columns published by Thames & Hudson about Neri&Hu's works: Neri&Hu Design and Research Office: Works and Projects 2002 - 2014 in 2018 and Thresholds: Space, Time and Practice in 2021.
Neri&Hu has won many valuable international awards for their designs, including Architectural Review Emerging Architecture Award (2010), The Plan Award Overall Winner (2018), Wallpaper* Design Awards Designers of the Year (2014 ), Dezeen Awards Architecture Studio of the Year (2021), and Architectural Record Design Vanguard (2009). Their creations have been displayed at the MAXXI Museum in Rome, the Design Museum in London and the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City. And will also be exhibited at the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale in May.
Over the past 20 years, Hu, at the forefront of the creative vanguard, has dramatically changed Shanghai's design culture. She co-founded Shanghai's Festival of Design in 2016, which brings numerous design-focused talks and other events to the city.
She has also received invitations to be a judge for a number of prestigious competitions and awards, including the RIBA International Awards 2020 and the Dezeen Awards 2022. Meanwhile, her husband is also one of the founding partners by Design Republic, a design platform that combines education, retail, design and cultural exhibitions. She joined the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra's International Advisory Board in 2018 after being appointed creative director of Stellar Works in 2015.
Hu devoted herself to studying architecture in addition to his design work, lecturing at universities and trade associations throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. In addition to the University of California, Berkeley, she has taught at the Yale School of Architecture, the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the University of Hong Kong, and other institutions. Hu received a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley with a minor in music and a Master of Architecture and Urban Planning from Princeton.
According to Luxuo Vietnam
