Earlier this month, I joined a panel at the Thibaut Showroom on Lexington Avenue for Beauty + Belonging: Designing for Human Experience, a morning program presented by IIDA and Thibaut. Our session, Between Disciplines: Where Art Meets the Built Environment, put me alongside Nisha Sajnani of NYU Steinhardt and the Jameel Arts & Health Lab, Bevin Savage-Yamazaki of Gensler, and Dan Cheetham of FYOOG. By the end of the conversation, I was bursting with more ideas than I walked in with.
The objective of the panel was simple: to explore the role of beauty as a design imperative. A growing body of research shows that aesthetic experiences can affect our health and well-being. For those of us designing commercial spaces, that changes the conversation. Beauty isn’t simply something we add at the end if the budget allows—it can be part of how a space works. Art is part of our everyday human experience, and I believe it will only become more impactful in the future.
Hospitality has its own version of this challenge. Brand guidelines, particularly within larger hotel groups, can sometimes feel like constraints, but our job as designers is to find creativity within those boundaries and create moments people remember. Art is one of the most powerful tools we have to use. A hotel experience shouldn’t simply be about where you slept, it should be about how you experienced the space and how it made you feel. One of my favorite examples is 21c Museum Hotels, where the experience is about living with art, discovering local and emerging artists, and learning about a place through the people who create there.
Workplaces are catching on, too. I recently visited JPMorgan’s new office building and was impressed by how thoughtfully art was incorporated throughout the space. It reinforced the idea that we don’t simply look at art—we live within it. Art can influence our mood, shift our perspective, stimulate our minds, and change how we experience an environment. What struck me most was that all of this was happening in an office. That’s the kind of workplace people actually want to be in.
When asked what makes me optimistic, I naturally found myself talking about New York City. Art is woven into the fabric of this city—from the sculptures along Park Avenue and in local parks to graffiti, architecture, galleries, and performance art. Even the city’s sanitation trucks have become canvases, carrying Knicks graphics, while artist Timothy Goodman has transformed dumpsters and truck sides with his work.
It’s a reminder that art doesn’t have to live in a gallery. In New York, it can live on the side of a building, in a park, on the street—or even on a garbage truck. That ability to find creativity and beauty in unexpected places is something that makes me optimistic.
My thanks to IIDA, Thibaut, and my fellow panelists for a conversation that reminded me why I do this work.