SUOMI DESIGN WORKS CELEBRATES FIRST ANNIVERSARY
The Firm Announces Upcoming Projects and Recent Product Collaborations During its First Year

Odysseus for LebaTex

The Radical

| New York, NY - February 11, 2021 | Suomi Design Works celebrates a full year since its foundation by Michael Suomi in late 2019. In honor of this milestone, they are highlighting special moments of the past year, including a prestigious shortlist honor for their first BDNY installation as a new firm, product collaboration with Stacy Garcia’s company, LebaTex, and a slate of exciting new projects that will soon join their rapidly expanding portfolio.

The firm is proud to announce an upcoming hospitality project with Hatteras Sky called The Radical, a conversion of a 1920’s warehouse into a boutique hotel in historic Asheville, NC. The project will feature four F&B venues including a coffee shop, restaurant, secret bar, and rooftop, as well as 70 guestrooms and suites. The unique history of the building formed the narrative for the design, which prompted Suomi to include the exoskeleton and graffiti in the interiors, artifacts from time spent as an abandoned lot. This hotel will celebrate the past and embrace its location in Asheville’s River Arts District, with an industrial chic design sparked by a collaboration with iconic film production designer, Kris Moran, in addition to some radical points of inspiration that will surprise guests at every turn. 

Suomi’s team also wrapped their first year by beginning work on a pair of ambitious new projects. In NewOrleans, they are working with joint venture AMS Hospitality to reinvent the historic Pelham Hotel, with a focus on appealing to a younger generation of travelers. They were also honored to be selected by the prestigious Aspen Institute to lead a focused renovation of the Aspen Meadows Resort, the only U.S. hotel designed by one of Bauhaus’ most influential artists and teachers, Herbert Bayer.

“As we conquered the turmoil of the past year, we are pleased to announce that our firm has continued to build and develop in ways we could have never predicted, from receiving international recognition to adding new team members and securing some of the most exciting new projects I’ve had the opportunity to lead,” says designer Michael Suomi, Founder and Principal of Suomi Design Works. “We hope you will celebrate with us as we toast our accomplishments from 2020, and give you a preview of our upcoming work.”

In additional early successes for the firm, Suomi Design Works’ bar concept entitled “Future Forward” from the 2019 Boutique Design New York exposition was shortlisted in the globally recognized Restaurant and Bar Design Awards. On the product side, Suomi Design Works was given the opportunity to design Odysseus, a collaborative commercial fabric with LebaTex, in honor of Stacy Garcia’s 20th anniversary in the hospitality industry. Inspired by the hero of Homer’s Greek epic poem The Odyssey, Suomi expresses the unexpected and tumultuous times faced this year as gusts of wind that, like in Odysseus’ arduous and perilous journey, signal a return “home” - which we continue to seek as we redefine what “normal” means post-pandemic.

About Suomi Design Works
Suomi Design Works, a Manhattan-based design firm, was founded by Michael Suomi in 2019 in order to meet the industry’s ever-expanding need for a high-level of creativity combined with deep expertise. With more than 30 years of architectural and interior design experience, Suomi has become well-known for his strong conceptual narrative approach to design for owners, developers, and global brands with vision. The firm's highly creative hotel concepts are grounded in a deep understanding of each property’s local, cultural, and industrial histories. By actively seeking out design catalysts to infuse each project with out-of-industry innovations from the worlds of fashion, technology, and cinema, Suomi Design Works creates completely custom hotels that are crafted through an exceptionally personalized process.