In the world of luxury interior design, few names resonate as strongly as Goddard Littlefair. Editor, Vicky Lewis sat down with Martin and Jo to explore their unique approach to creating spaces that captivate and inspire.
Talking to Jo and Martin feels like catching up with old friends – they are warm and welcoming and bring with them such an aura of knowledge and creativity. Having initially met almost 20 years ago whilst working for another design studio, they found common ground in their work ethic and design aesthetics and, after some years apart exploring and developing their skills, they came back together in 2012 to launch the studio that now bears their name.
Jo and Martin’s experience and design expertise has taken Goddard Littlefair to destinations around the world and their appetite for travel doesn’t look to cease any time soon. With so many incredible projects under their belts, I was keen to hear about the ones that are particularly memorable for them. I asked which was their favourite, to which Jo laughed and said: “Well, that’s a bit like choosing a favourite child!” They agreed that there are so many elements that make a project memorable for them, but a key one is the journey that takes it from planning to opening, and Four Seasons Sultanahmet took them on a journey that they will never forget. Jo explained: “We started that just before lockdown. We had one site visit, and then everything was shut down. As lockdowns were breaking, we began to be able to go over, but there was one journey where we had to go to Turkey when it was a red-listed country, and had to plan a whole journey back through Europe so that the UK would let us back in. It was so important that we had made that journey as it’s the only way we could go and work with the Turkish manufacturers to make sure everything was on track.”
That level of commitment from this team is not a one off, and led to a strong relationship between the design team and the client. Jo continued: “I think that commitment meant that there was a good sense of teamwork between us and the client and the developer – it was a truly collaborative effort to get there and do it. That ethos carried on throughout the rest of the project, but that trip unlocked it: unlocked the collaboration and unlocked the relationships. People felt much more comfortable to pick up the phone and it just helped a lot of things, so it was totally worth it!”
Our conversation then turned to the importance of people in this process. Jo and Martin are clearly completely committed to their projects, but they say it is the people that are then left behind to run the space that need to be just as invested as they are. Storytelling is so important in the Goddard Littlefair design process and Jo and Martin really believe in educating the operations teams about the narrative within the design so that guests can benefit from the full experience. Martin said: “It’s the people actually on the shop floor, interacting with the guests that need to know the story. It’s so important that we can go to the site of our projects and walk them round the space explaining why a chandelier looks a certain way, or why the chairs are a particular colour, or why the artwork is positioned in a particular place. The reaction we get when we do this is great, because without it they wouldn’t know this information and when they can see and feel the story, they can pass it on.”
The element of storytelling is vital to the modern luxury traveller and, Martin explained, the design around this needs to be intuitive: “Just because you have a hotel in London, doesn’t mean you can slap a picture of Big Ben on the wall and be done with it. It’s got to be cleverer than that. You’ve got to be more ingrained in the design. And that is what we do.”
So when it comes to wellness design, how does this all fit together? It comes back to experiences, explained Jo. Everyone, particularly since the pandemic, is looking for ways to live well and live longer: “Luxury is becoming a term for anything that gives people the ability to invest in themselves. When it comes to wellness design in hospitality, hoteliers might not feel like they get the money back that they’ve put into a spa, but what you don’t see is the money that it attracts to a property because it’s got a spa. I think the draw of wellness is massive. Guests are now looking for spaces that are more inviting, they’re less austere, they’re more inclusive spaces. So when we’re looking at spa and gym design, we’re looking at materiality that’s warm and inviting and tactile, because people are thinking about mental health as well as physical health nowadays.”
The experiential wellness era that we are now working within follows on from the explosion in F&B experiences that we have seen become such an industry in recent years, said Martin. Wellness spaces have to make people feel different: “It’s not a quantifiable effect, but it’s what it leaves you with – perhaps more understanding about your own body, your wellbeing, your mental health. It’s our job to create the backdrop to that experience and set a theatre for it all to happen in. Take our design at the OWO, for example. We created a staircase connecting the gym to the pool area – the purpose of that was all about karma and connection and creating a bit of drama.”
I wanted to know where the team start when faced with a blank canvas and how they even begin the process of designing these spaces. Jo explained that each project is tackled as independent entities: “We treat every project independently and uniquely, they always come with a set of parameters. It’s like having a crossword puzzle or a Rubik’s Cube; every project has got its elements – its architecture, its location, its brand, its owner, its aspiration, the guests. All of these ingredients create a recipe for each project, and they’re all going to be different. We have to be looking at the whole project and understanding what is going to be the appropriate design language, and then we look deep into the storytelling and pull threads together that will create something that is fascinating for the guests.”
Martin continued, explaining that location is also key, but to a finite degree: “When using the location, it has to be centred around the very spot the property is on. We want to know what it is about that particular street, the particular neighbourhood that is important. We had to think carefully about this in Istanbul, the particular part of the old town we were working in has an amazing depth of history going all the way through, which is different from a location that’s on the Bosphorus down the hill. You can’t just think ‘Oh, it’s Istanbul. It should be designed like this’. It has to be linked to this particular street, this particular building, this particular spot, and that gives the design the connection.”
So in this complex industry that is wanting so much from designers, how are the Goddard Littlefair team tackling some of the big issues? Sustainability – how are they ensuring their footprint isn’t felt too deeply? Jo shared: “’Designing well, designing once’ is one of our key mantras – we always try to design something that isn’t fast fashion and can transcend time. We are also fascinated with materiality and how things are changing. If we can use recycled materials, we will. And equally, if we can go into a project and harvest from the property and repurpose items, that’s equally effective.”
Martin extended this thought: “I think interiors is great for sustainability in lots of ways, because we work a lot in existing buildings. We’re working on a project in Greece now within a 1970s hotel structure. We’re trying to make tiny rooms into bigger rooms and working within the structure, which is not easy, but it’s a good challenge. We completed a hotel in Vienna – a Mandarin Oriental – and all the windows were repaired and refurbished on site. They were removed, reworked, resealed and then put back in. And the joy of that is they’ve been worked on by artisans. We are regenerating buildings that have fallen out of use because they no longer function, and giving them another purpose, giving them new life. I think that’s sustainability straight off.”
With so much going on, what’s next in the pipeline for this team? Martin explained that they want to continue to grow: “We want to try different geographies and work in different places. We’d like to do more in Italy and crack North America, do something in the Caribbean, South America, Asia.”
So no big plans for this team then…only to conquer the world! I can’t wait to see it all unfold.
