The Art of Design

Interior specialist Robbyn Carter reveals how she creates unique, immersive experiences in the hotels she sculpts.

- LOW SHI PING

Art is often cited by designers as a source of inspiration, but interior specialist Robbyn Carter, has taken this to the next level. Walk into any of her projects around the world, and it feels like you have entered a sculpture.

Whether it is the Kimpton Shanghai or the Fairmont Maldives — and most recently, the Mondrian Duxton Singapore — each of the spaces is a creative composition of forms, colours, and materials.

This is certainly no coincidence. Carter, who runs her eponymous studio headquartered in California in the United States, did in fact begin her career as a sculptor through an apprenticeship with artist Albert Guibara in San Francisco.

By night, as “starving artists often do”, she took a second job in hospitality to supplement her income. “It was really while working in these environments that I realised the similarities between space and sculpture,” she says in a Zoom interview with The Peak.

While pursuing a degree in environmental design from the Arts Center College of Design in Pasadena, she started to develop a skill that now sees her working at the intersection where fine art meets interior architecture, with a focus on hospitality. Since then, she has had the chance to practise in diverse destinations across the US, Europe, and Asia.

“My design philosophy is really rooted in the values of artistic expression. Being an artist at heart, I like to think of spaces more sculpturally and compositionally — the idea that someone could walk through my project and really have a unique and immersive experience,” she explains.

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