STUDIO AKARII / THE STUDIO

Built around the work.

ONE SENIOR TEAM

Studio Akarii is an independent strategic, creative and technical agency working across brand, culture, design and technology. Strategy sets the direction, design gives it form, and engineering makes it real, one senior team carrying a brand from first principle to live platform, assembled around the needs of each commission.

INTENTIONALLY COLLABORATIVE

Alongside the core studio, we work with an international network of designers, architects, artists, developers, photographers, writers and specialist partners. The result is a studio that can remain close to the work while bringing in the right expertise when it matters.

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / THE STUDIO

A senior practice, assembled around the brief.

STRATEGY & DIRECTION

Brand Strategy

Positioning

Audience & Cultural Insight

Creative Direction

Commercial Strategy

BRAND & EXPERIENCE

Identity Systems

Digital Experience

Editorial

Campaigns

Content & Art Direction

TECHNOLOGY & GROWTH

Digital Products

Commerce

AI & Personalisation

Technology Strategy

Ongoing Optimisation

KEY CLIENT STATS

five-star hotels branded end to end — £95m+ Broadwick Soho & the 156-key Hotel Kraus

$2bn+

led in investment & development by our developer client, Kraus Holdings

£500m+

property portfolio branded & presented for Bridge Group

design capitals programmed across four years with WonderGlass

£750m

processed through partner-engineered platforms

5 yrs

structured client relationship with Hotel Kraus, through opening and beyond

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / THE STUDIO

What we believe.

Curiosity before certainty.

We don't arrive knowing the answer. We look, listen, travel, question and pull things apart. The interesting idea is rarely the first one in the room.

Taste is intelligence.

Data can tell you what people did. It cannot always tell you what they will desire next. Judgement matters. References matter. Culture matters.

Protect the strange bit.

The unusual detail is often the first thing to disappear when too many people become involved. Distinctiveness rarely comes from consensus.

Small room. Big table.

We keep the core practice senior and invite exceptional people into the work when they can change it. Not a roster for the sake of scale. The right minds for the right idea.

Leave fingerprints.

Kraus should feel like Kraus. WonderGlass should feel like WonderGlass. The work should carry the character of the people, place and culture it belongs to, not ours.

Make something worth keeping.

Not everything needs to be faster, louder or newer. We want to make identities, experiences and ideas with enough substance to become more valuable with time.

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / THE PEOPLE BEHIND AKARII

THE FUTURIST

Jennifer Barlow

A designer asks what it could be. An engineer asks how it could work. Jen asks both.

Jen is a designer and mechanical engineer, two disciplines that taught her to look at the same problem from very different directions. One begins with imagination, people and experience. The other demands that the thing actually works. That tension has shaped her career.

Early in her career, Jen worked alongside Marcello as a Product Graphic Designer, a working relationship that now continues inside Akarii.

In 2023, before AI had become part of every client brief and boardroom conversation, Jen was already writing about its potential for business, exploring how this new generation of technology could change the way smaller companies think, compete and create. She went beyond writing about it. She began experimenting, designing and building with it.

Today Jen works between design, engineering, AI and business transformation, but the technology has never been the most interesting part for her. The human is. Where does it remove friction? Where does it give someone time back? Where can it make a designer more capable rather than less relevant? And where should we have the confidence not to use it at all?

She's not a technologist added to a creative studio because AI became important. She's a designer and engineer who saw early that the two worlds were about to become one.

AT AKARII

Jen helps our clients look beyond the brief in front of them. She sees the systems behind the experience, the technology behind the opportunity and the human being who ultimately has to live with both.

"We can bridge the gap between what's possible and what's actually useful."

MECHANICAL ENGINEER · DESIGNER · PUBLISHED AUTHOR · AI SPECIALIST

AUTHOR

AI Revolution · SME 1st Movers Advantage Guide

She was thinking about what comes after AI before most businesses had worked out what to do with it.

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / THE PEOPLE BEHIND AKARII

THE BUILDER

Peter Nash

Give Peter the unreasonable idea. He'll start working out how to build it.

Peter has spent 20 years in senior technology positions, across web, mobile, digital products, technical architecture and complex systems.

His experience includes work with British Airways, LK Bennett, Salesforce, J&J and Topshop, alongside patented technology and years spent understanding what happens underneath the digital experiences customers take for granted. At British Airways, he was the lead CTO behind the airline's new iOS app, processing over £1 million a week.

Peter is deeply technical without needing everyone else in the room to be. That makes him unusually valuable around creative people. His first instinct isn't to explain why something can't happen. It's to understand what would be required to make it happen.

AT AKARII

Peter gives our ideas somewhere to go. He means we don't have to create the strategy, design the experience and then hand the difficult part to somebody we've never met. We can build it.

"The most expensive words in a creative project can be: 'we'll work out how it works later.'"

BRITISH AIRWAYS · LK BENNETT · SALESFORCE · J&J · TOPSHOP
20 YEARS · TECHNICAL ARCHITECTURE · DIGITAL PRODUCTS · WEB · MOBILE · AI · PATENT HOLDER

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / THE PEOPLE BEHIND AKARII

THE OPERATOR

Vanya Pavlides

He knows luxury from the inside.

Vanya has spent more than two decades inside hospitality, restaurants, fashion, ownership and operations. Not advising those businesses from a distance. Running them.

That means he understands the thousand things a customer never sees but always feels, the room, the welcome, the service, the timing, the people and the commercial machinery underneath it all.

His experience spans Louie London, Mozaik, La Madone, L'Avenue and 43North, giving him an understanding of luxury from the customer's experience right through to the realities of operating the business behind it.

AT AKARII

Vanya is the commercial reality inside the creative conversation. He asks whether the beautiful idea can operate, scale and ultimately create value. The things people remember are often the things they never see being organised.

"People experience hundreds of tiny decisions as one feeling."

A brand works in exactly the same way. People don't experience your strategy, identity, website and service separately. They experience you.

LOUIE LONDON · MOZAIK · LA MADONE · L'AVENUE · 43NORTH · 20+ YEARS

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / THE PEOPLE BEHIND AKARII

THE VOICE

Richard Prime

A career spent asking interesting people better questions.

Richard came to brands through journalism. Through Monocle and Cool Hunting, his world was architecture, interiors, fashion, furniture, design and culture, interviewing and writing about the people shaping them.

He learned to listen before he learned to sell. That experience developed an instinct for finding the thing inside a business that is genuinely worth talking about.

Richard eventually moved from writing about influential brands and creative culture to helping brands define their own voices. His experience spans the intimacy and heritage of Hästens and the extraordinary international scale of H&M.

AT AKARII

Richard isn't handed a finished strategy and asked to write around it. He's there when we find it. He asks the uncomfortable question, listens for the sentence everyone else missed and turns what makes a business interesting into something other people want to hear. He finds the story before he writes the words.

"If everyone in your category is saying it, it isn't your story."

MONOCLE · COOL HUNTING · HÄSTENS · H&M
JOURNALISM · ARCHITECTURE · INTERIORS · DESIGN · FASHION · CULTURE · BRAND VOICE

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / THE PEOPLE BEHIND AKARII

THE CONNECTOR

Brooke Boden

300+ brands. One very trained eye.

For more than a decade, Brooke has worked across over 300 brands spanning luxury interiors, fashion, furniture, lighting, accessories and design.

That experience has put her on almost every side of the luxury world, with manufacturers and makers, designers and architects, founders building businesses and HNW clients choosing what enters their homes and lives.

It has taught her how desire moves between categories. How fashion influences interiors. How hospitality borrows from retail. How an exceptional product becomes a brand, and how the right introduction can change the direction of a business.

Brooke's instinct is people. She sees connections quickly and has spent her career building relationships between worlds that don't always naturally meet.

AT AKARII

Brooke sees the opportunity, builds the relationship and brings the right people around the table.

"Luxury rarely lives in a category anymore. The best hotel might borrow from fashion. The best furniture brand might behave like a gallery. The next great property brand might think like a members' club."

300+ BRANDS · 10+ YEARS
LUXURY · FASHION · INTERIORS · FURNITURE · LIGHTING · ACCESSORIES

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / THE PEOPLE BEHIND AKARII

THE EYE

Marcello Minale

Design was never really a career choice for Marcello. It was already around the dinner table.

His father, Marcello Minale Snr, arrived in London from Italy and in 1964 co-founded Minale Tattersfield, part of a generation that helped shape modern multidisciplinary design in Britain, moving freely between identity, fashion, hospitality, packaging, interiors and the built environment long before "multidisciplinary" became agency language.

For Marcello, those names were never case studies from another era. It was his father. His family. His education in design. He joined the studio himself in 1986 and eventually led it, carrying the Minale name into another generation and building a formidable body of work of his own.

And yet what he loves most today is remarkably simple: designing, drawing, sketching, illustrating. Put a pencil in his hand and he's happy, still disappearing into a drawing, still obsessing over a detail, still quietly making things for relationships built over decades, including members of the Ferragamo family.

He has run the studio. Led the teams. Worked with the famous names. Now he wants to make.

AT AKARII

Marcello isn't here to oversee the work from a distance. He's here because, after a lifetime in design, he still loves doing it.

"Ultimately, there is only good design, created by working with good people."

His father's lesson, and an idea that sits very close to the reason Akarii exists.

THE MINALE LINEAGE

FENDI · VALENTINO · HARRODS · LONDON TRANSPORT · EUROSTAR · BP · PREMIER LEAGUE

MARCELLO'S OWN WORK

HILTON HOTELS · V&A · TATE · SAN PELLEGRINO · ILLY · FERRERO · TWICKENHAM · LONDON 2012

A lineage beginning in 1964. Joined 1986.

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STUDIO AKARII / THE PEOPLE BEHIND AKARII

THE ENGINEER

Tom Walsh

An engineer who turns frontier technology into systems clients actually run their businesses on.

Tom has spent a decade embedded with clients, from startups to global brands, learning their stack, scoping the work and owning delivery end to end rather than passing tickets over a wall.

Much of that decade has been spent replatforming enterprise retailers from Salesforce Commerce Cloud onto Shopify. For Mamas & Papas, he helped move one of the UK's best-known nursery retailers off Salesforce and onto Shopify, mapping legacy data models and templates, rebuilding the integration layer and getting a complex catalogue live without losing trading performance. He has done the same for World of Books, a multinational reseller with a vast, fast-moving catalogue.

Digital design, development, UX and eCommerce specialist with experience across Kellogg's, Crockett & Jones, Cadence, SISU Lifestyle and KryoShift, alongside 28+ recent brand engagements through Felltop Digital.

AT AKARII

Tom is the reason an Akarii brand doesn't stop at the design. He takes the identities, experiences and commerce ambitions the studio creates and makes them perform, on the platforms clients actually trade on, at the standard the brand demands. Beautiful on day one, still fast, stable and converting on day one thousand.

"Ship quickly, make failures loud and early, and add complexity only when the evidence demands it."

MAMAS & PAPAS · WORLD OF BOOKS · TGI FRIDAYS · ROWSE
SALESFORCE → SHOPIFY REPLATFORMING · AI SYSTEMS · 10 YEARS

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / PUBLISHED WORDS

1960s

DESIGN

Marcello Minale Snr begins building one of Britain's pioneering multidisciplinary design practices.

1996

MULTIDISCIPLINARY

How to Run & Run a Successful Multidisciplinary Design Company

1999

THE BUSINESS OF CREATIVITY

How to Keep on Running a Successful Design Company

2000

DESIGNING EVERYTHING

How to Design a Successful Petrol Station

AI ERA

REIMAGINING WORK

Jennifer Barlow co-authors AI Revolution · SME 1st Movers Advantage Guide

How to Run a Successful Multi-Disciplinary Design Company — book cover

How to Keep Running a Successful Design Company — book cover

The Image Maker — how to design successful corporate identities

AI Revolution — SME 1st Movers Advantage Guide, co-authored by Jennifer Barlow

Minale wrote about the multidisciplinary practice. Today, multidisciplinary means something entirely different.

Design now sits with technology, strategy with AI, story with systems, and creativity with commercial reality.

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / PEOPLE

The collective.

We found each other through the work.
We stayed because of the people.

Akarii is made up of people who have already had careers.

We've built businesses, designed identities, written stories, run restaurants, interviewed people we admired, built technology at scale, made mistakes, changed direction and collected a few good stories along the way.

None of us needed another agency.

What we wanted was somewhere we could do the work differently.

A table where Marcello's lifetime of design instinct could sit beside Peter's ability to build almost anything. Where Richard's curiosity could change the question before anyone rushed to answer it. Where Jen could pull us towards something none of us had considered yet. Where Vanya could bring us back to the person on the other side of the experience. And where Brooke could keep finding the people, ideas and unlikely connections that brought us here in the first place.

There is history between some of us. New friendships between others. Different generations, different countries, different disciplines and very different personalities.

That's what makes it work.

There is no junior team waiting behind us to take over once the meeting ends.

This is the team.

The people you meet are the people thinking about your business, arguing over the details, making the work and caring about what eventually carries all of our names.

Akarii means light. Perhaps that's why the name stayed with us.

Because the best thing about this group isn't any one person's career.

It's what we bring out in each other.

And that's what we hope to bring out in the people we work with.

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / ASSOCIATED PARTNERS

Built around the work.

AN INTERNATIONAL NETWORK

Rather than maintaining every discipline under one roof, we build the right senior team around each commission, bringing together expertise across architecture, interiors, technology, development, photography, film, production, editorial and communications.

ONE CLEAR IDEA

The studio remains responsible for the creative direction, ensuring each discipline contributes to one clear idea.

ARCHITECTURE & INTERIORS

DIGITAL DEVELOPMENT

AI & TECHNOLOGY

PHOTOGRAPHY & FILM

PRODUCTION

EDITORIAL

PR & COMMUNICATIONS

SPECIALIST DESIGN

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / ASSOCIATED PARTNERS

PAMETAN

ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY

THE PARTNER

Our engineering partner for complex digital products and technical delivery. Pametan brings senior engineering capability across platform architecture, integrations, cloud infrastructure and high-performance systems, specialising in financial technologies such as open banking and financial modelling.

PROVEN AT SCALE

Their client technology has processed £750m in payment volume and more than 185 million applications, with a 100% first-time pass rate on third-party security reviews, and 70+ live integrations working as one platform.

"Tell us the scale, because scale shapes the build. A system for 1,000 users is a very different thing to one for 1,000,000."

£750m

payment volume processed through client systems

185m+

applications processed through their technology

100%

first-time pass rate on third-party security reviews

ENGINEERING · TECHNICAL ARCHITECTURE · INTEGRATIONS · DEVELOPMENT

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / ASSOCIATED PARTNERS

MOZAIK

DIGITAL EXPERIENCE & PERFORMANCE

THE PARTNER

Award-winning digital expertise spanning web, e-commerce, performance and digital campaigns. Mozaik brings more than 15 years of recognised work and is a Google Premier Partner for the 13th consecutive year, placing the agency among the top 3% of Google Partners in 2026.

SELECTED CLIENTS

Marriott Hotels · La Réserve Hotels · Coco-Mat · Odera

15+

years of recognised, award-winning digital work

13th

consecutive year as a Google Premier Partner

Top 3%

of Google Partners in 2026

DIGITAL STRATEGY · E-COMMERCE · UX/UI · WEB DEVELOPMENT · PERFORMANCE · CRM · CONTENT

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / TECHNOLOGY

The people behind the technology.

Technology is easy to talk about. Changing a business with it is much harder. That is why Jen and Peter sit inside Akarii, they come at technology from opposite directions.

JEN · REDESIGNING THE WORK

Jen began with design and engineering. A designer, mechanical engineer and later CTO specialist, her instinct is to look inside a business and question the way the work itself is being done. More recently, she has been leading AI conversations within SMEs, from topline strategy through to implementation.

At David Phillips, that meant looking beyond the product and into the machinery behind it, design workflows, project tenders, systems and the considerable human resource required to deliver them. Her work helped transform processes previously supported by more than 12 designers, with the programme attributed to £10m+ in commercial impact, delivered in 3 weeks.*

The context makes that number more interesting: David Phillips was, at the time, the largest B2R furniture provider in the UK property-sector furnishing business, with £97m at its peak. Jen's work was to drive growth in Australia, to kick-start the international markets now known as Global Living.

"Transformation isn't about adding technology to the business you already have. It's about asking whether you would design the business the same way today."

PETER · BUILDING AT SCALE

Peter has spent more than 14 years much closer to the machinery itself, building products, architecting systems and working through the difficult technical questions that appear when an idea has to operate in the real world.

His experience includes technology work associated with British Airways, LK Bennett, Salesforce, J&J and Topshop, complex digital-product architecture, and a US patent for a method of modifying deployed applications remotely.

The scale is the point: at British Airways, Peter was the lead CTO behind the airline's new iOS app, processing over £1 million a week. Topshop and Topman, at their late-2010s scale, were generating £846.8m in annual sales, including around £170m online.

Jen has seen what happens when you redesign the way people work. Peter has seen what happens when what you build has to perform at serious scale.

Together, the question changes. Not "where can we put AI?", but "where is this business losing time, talent or opportunity, and what could we redesign?" That's where technology becomes valuable: when the business works differently because of it.

* The 12+ designer and £10m+ impact figures are based on Jen's project account and should be confirmed against project documentation before being published as externally verified claims.

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / SELECTED WORK

The company we keep.

Akarii's first year has been built on a small number of relationships, taken on deliberately and staggered with care.

CLIENT

WHO THEY ARE

INSIDE THE WORK

STATUS

HOTEL KRAUS
DALLAS

156 keys · 2 restaurants · members' club · destination spa · rooftop, created alongside Jacques Garcia Studio, Swoon Interiors, AO Architects and Southern View Hospitality.

Building the world from the beginning, strategy, identity, storytelling and creative direction across hotel, dining, wellness and membership.

CURRENT · BRAND BUILD

KRAUS HOLDINGS
DALLAS

A private real estate investment practice with more than $2 billion led in investment, finance and development, the development company behind Hotel Kraus.

Leading the corporate digital presence, from first impression through to the investor relationship: website, data room, investor experience.

CURRENT · DIGITAL

BRIDGE GROUP
LONDON

£500M+ property portfolio. A design-led developer working across significant Central London assets.

A wider transformation relationship, digital, master brand, property storytelling and practical AI integration across the business.

CURRENT · TRANSFORMATION

WE MOUNTAIN
SWITZERLAND

Founded by extreme skier Dominique Perret. A specialist education platform built around genuine mountain knowledge and safety.

Evolving its digital expression without losing the expertise and authority already behind the brand.

CURRENT · DIGITAL

MAISON KOKOON
DUBAI

A new luxury hospitality proposition being developed for one of the world's most competitive hospitality markets.

Defining the positioning and brand world while the concept itself is still being shaped.

CURRENT · BRAND DEVELOPMENT

BROADWICK SOHO
LONDON

£95M redevelopment · 57 rooms. A highly authored five-star Soho hotel with interiors by Martin Brudnizki.

Akarii enters selectively, collaborating on key campaigns and creative moments rather than operating as an always-on agency.

ONGOING · SELECT CAMPAIGNS

WE ARE SANCTUM
AMSTERDAM / GLOBAL

Founded by Luuk Melisse & Gabriel Olszewski. Movement, wellness, music and community brought together as a new kind of experience.

Working directly with the founders on the next stage of the brand, positioning, digital, membership and growth.

DEVELOPMENT · SELECT ENGAGEMENT

MARBELLA CLUB
MARBELLA

Jennica Arazi · Ariel Arazi. Est. 1954 · 70+ years of heritage · 115 rooms & suites · 15 villas. One of European hospitality's enduring institutions.

Entering an established world carefully, introduced through board member Ariel Arazi, and understanding what deserves protecting before determining where Akarii can add value.

SCHEDULED · 2027

EVLOGIA
GREECE / GLOBAL

A Greek-born proposition expanding toward a wider luxury world spanning food, wellness, hospitality and culture.

Global positioning, story, identity, editorial and digital, creating the foundations for the next stage of the brand.

SCHEDULED · 2027

Some of the most important relationships in our first year haven't come from pitching. They've come from people we've worked with inviting us into the next conversation.

STUDIO AKARII / SELECTED WORK

INTERIOR DESIGN COLLABORATOR

Martin Brudnizki

MARTIN BRUDNIZKI DESIGN STUDIO · LONDON / NEW YORK

One of the leading names in contemporary hospitality and interior design. MBDS has been recognised by Architectural Digest's AD100 repeatedly from its 2020 debut through the 2026 list, placing the studio among the world's leading interior and architectural practices.

SELECTED PROJECTS

Annabel's, London · The Beekman, New York · The Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York · Broadwick Soho, London · Splendido, Portofino

At Broadwick Soho, Studio Akarii shaped the brand hand in hand with MBDS, an identity born from the interiors, not applied to them. Every branding decision passed through Martin Brudnizki's approval — a standard we welcome.

AD100 · 25 YEARS OF PRACTICE · LONDON & NEW YORK STUDIOS

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / SELECTED WORK

Broadwick.

SOHO, LONDON

WHERE AKARII BEGAN

Broadwick was one of Brooke and Vanya's first projects together, embarking in 2022 on building a brand identity worthy of the house itself. The relationship has never stopped: the studio has shaped the brand from first principle and continues to shape it today.

THE COMMISSION

An independent five-star hotel with the ambition to become part of the fabric of Soho. With more than £95 million invested in the redevelopment, the brand needed to carry the same consideration as the building itself.

THE RESULT

A hotel made up of distinct worlds, each with its own character while remaining unmistakably part of Broadwick Soho.

DEAR JACKIE · BAR JACKIE · FLUTE · THE NOOK · THE DINING ROOM

CREATIVE & CAMPAIGN COLLABORATION

Working alongside the Broadwick Hotels team across creative and campaign projects, within a wider creative network spanning Martin Brudnizki Studio, Andrea Gelardin and leading hospitality collaborators.

MULTI-AWARD-WINNING BROADWICK SOHO

The Times London & City Hotel of the Year · Michelin Key · Condé Nast Traveller Hot List · Travel + Leisure It List · Robb Report Best of the Best

£95M+ DEVELOPMENT · 57 ROOMS & SUITES · SOHO, LONDON · ONGOING SINCE 2022

INTERIORS BY MARTIN BRUDNIZKI DESIGN STUDIO

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / BROADWICK

An identity with Soho's charged glamour.

Studio Akarii leads branding and visual design: wordmark, typography and print through in-room collateral, menus and digital presence, one identity carried through every guest touchpoint.

THE ELEPHANT — FAMILY, MEMORY & SHOWMANSHIP

Chosen as Broadwick Soho's emblem, the elephant represents loyalty, compassion and memory, values rooted in Noel Hayden's own family story. Playful and theatrical, it became a recurring character throughout the hotel, connecting the world of Broadwick Soho back to the family, hospitality and showmanship of Noel's childhood.

BRANDING · VISUAL IDENTITY · PRINT · DIGITAL

Broadwick Soho entrance — pink door under the red awning

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / SELECTED WORK

Polène.

LUXURY & FASHION · PARIS

THE BRAND

The Parisian leather goods house built on sculptural form, honest materials and accessible luxury, one of the most closely watched names in contemporary French fashion.

THE WORK

Identity craft across the house's visual world: the sculptural monogram, custom logotype drawing, pattern and the material language that carries the mark from embossed leather and hardware to packaging and campaign.

Polène is a family house whose name carries personal meaning, and every detail of the identity is expected to honour it. Working with brands like this means designing in close collaboration with the people the name belongs to.

IDENTITY · LOGOTYPE · MONOGRAM · PATTERN · PACKAGING

COLLABORATORS — VIOLAINE & JÉRÉMY, PARIS

Polène monogram and logotype over leather still life

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / SELECTED WORK

Louie.

COVENT GARDEN, LONDON

THE HOUSE

A New Orleans-inspired restaurant and late-night house in the heart of Covent Garden · Creole warmth, live music and French elegance across four storeys of a Georgian townhouse.

THE INVOLVEMENT

Co-founded by a member of Studio Akarii's leadership, the studio's involvement ran from concept to opening: the brand world, its editorial voice and the guest experience that made Louie one of London's most talked-about openings.

IN NUMBERS

Paris Society's first UK address, on the former L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon site. The wider group now operates 76 venues with €288m in annual revenue.

THE SAME TABLE, AGAIN

Following Broadwick Soho, Brooke, Rich and Vanya worked together on Louie, bringing hospitality, communications, brand and editorial into the same project.

Akarii wasn't assembled for a pitch. It grew out of people who had already trusted each other with real openings, real budgets and real reputations.

11,000 SQ FT · 4 FLOORS · 150 COVERS
INTERIOR DESIGN BY DION & ARLES

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / SELECTED WORK

WonderGlass. Four years, five design capitals.

THE COMMISSION

Studio Akarii's work with WonderGlass centred on the creative expression of the brand across exhibitions, campaigns and international design events, connecting contemporary Venetian glassmaking with an international design audience.

BROOKE & RICH

Four years working together with WonderGlass, at the intersection of collectible design, art, architecture and luxury. Brooke led communications, creative relationships and the brand's connection with the international design community, working across designers, architects, collaborators and press. Rich shaped the editorial voice, press narratives and strategic direction, translating the craftsmanship, collaborations and ideas behind WonderGlass into a language that gave the brand cultural context and authority.

CREATIVE DIRECTION · EXHIBITIONS · CAMPAIGNS · EDITORIAL · DIGITAL

MILAN · VENICE · PARIS · LONDON · NEW YORK

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / SELECTED WORK

INTERIOR DESIGN COLLABORATOR

Jacques Garcia

STUDIO JACQUES GARCIA · PARIS

A defining figure in international luxury hospitality, with more than 70 hotels to his name and a body of work spanning hotels, restaurants, historic residences, museums and cultural institutions around the world.

Garcia is a member of the Architectural Digest AD100 Hall of Fame, recognising his enduring influence on international interiors and decoration.

SELECTED PROJECTS

Hôtel Costes, Paris · La Mamounia, Marrakech · NoMad, New York · La Réserve, Paris & Geneva · The Louvre · Palace of Versailles

At Hotel Kraus, Studio Akarii works side by side with Garcia's atelier, identity and decoration speaking as one. Every branding decision passes through his approval — a standard we welcome.

AD100 HALL OF FAME · PARIS · 70+ HOTELS WORLDWIDE

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / HOTEL KRAUS

Where it started.

A year ago, Hotel Kraus brought us around the same table. But the relationship started before Akarii did.

Following the work at Broadwick Soho, founder Noel Hayden and Jo Ringestad referred Brooke and Vanya to Dallas developer Adam Kraus and Camille Kraus to take on an ambitious new project: the creation of a 156-key luxury hotel in Dallas, encompassing restaurants, bars, private membership, wellness, events and hospitality.

The brief demanded more than desk research. Together with Adam and Camille, we undertook a deep immersion across Dallas, Paris and London: access to private members' clubs, restaurants and hotels that ordinarily keep much of their world behind closed doors. Time spent not only looking at design, but understanding how people arrive, how they are hosted, where they gather, how membership works, how a room changes from day to night, and what makes someone want to come back.

The research moved from dining rooms and bars to private salons, members' spaces and hotel lobbies, alongside architecture, neighbourhood studies, competitor analysis and time with the people who actually operate these places.

It was less about collecting references and more about understanding the mechanics of belonging.

The result was a much broader piece of work than an identity: strategy, brand architecture, storytelling, restaurants and bars, private membership, wellness, guest experience, digital and the cultural world surrounding the hotel.

AROUND THE TABLE

Brooke Boden · Vanya Pavlides · Marcello Minale · Richard Prime · Jen Barlow · Peter Nash

ALONGSIDE

Adam & Camille Kraus · Jacques Garcia Studio · Swoon Interiors · AO Architects · Southern View Hospitality

THE RELATIONSHIP

Structured across five years, keeping us involved as the project develops, opens and evolves.

HOTEL SCHEDULED TO OPEN 2028 · CONTINUED WORK COMMITTED THROUGH OPENING · CONNECTED ENGAGEMENT FOR DEVELOPER KRAUS HOLDINGS

APPOINTED UNDER SCRUTINY

Adam Kraus ran a rigorous vetting process across nine global agencies before trusting anyone with the brand. Studio Akarii was appointed against a field including King & Partners, New York, and leading agencies in Paris and London. Clients are available for reference.

Broadwick made the introduction. Kraus gave us the first table to sit around together. The people around that table became Akarii.

STUDIO AKARII

THE PEOPLE

Different paths.
Shared values.
One vision.

MARCELLO MINALE

Design

Carrying forward the Minale legacy in multidisciplinary design.

VANYA

Hospitality

20+ years in hospitality operations and development. From the inside.

BROOKE

Communications & Relationships

20+ years across fashion, interiors, design and luxury. 300+ brands.

RICHARD

Editorial & Strategy

Journalist and copywriter. Story, narrative and strategic voice.

JEN

Engineering & Technology

Designer. Mechanical engineer. Driving technology and transformation.

PETER

Technology

20 years in senior technology positions, building products and systems at scale.

THE TIMELINE

"There is only good design, created by working with good people." — 1964

1964

THE MINALE LEGACY

Marcello Minale Snr co-founds Minale Tattersfield, pioneering multidisciplinary design in Britain. The archive — and its ethos — becomes the red thread.

1990s

WRITING THE PRACTICE

Marcello Snr publishes books on building multidisciplinary design businesses. Keep moving.

2000s → TODAY

MARCELLO MINALE

Leads the studio into a new era. Return to first principles: design, drawing, illustration.

20+ YEARS

VANYA

A career inside hospitality, including Louie London and work around Broadwick Soho.

300+ BRANDS

BROOKE

Fashion, interiors, accessories, manufacturing and luxury. A global network of relationships.

FOUR YEARS

BROOKE × RICH

Four years together on WonderGlass: communications, relationships and editorial strategy.

RICHARD

THE EDITORIAL WORLD

Monocle, Cool Hunting, H&M, Hästens, Buster & Punch, WonderGlass. Years interviewing leading architects and designers.

20 YEARS · AI

PETER & JEN

Peter: 20 years in senior technology positions, including British Airways and Topshop. Jen: designer and mechanical engineer, transformation programmes attributed with £10m+ impact.

BROADWICK SOHO

BROOKE × VANYA

Work together around Broadwick Soho — a £95m, 57-room independent luxury hotel in London.

2025

THE INTRODUCTION

Noel Hayden and Jo Ringestad refer Brooke and Vanya to Adam and Camille Kraus. The brief: create the world around a new luxury hotel in Dallas.

THE COLLECTIVE COMES TOGETHER

BROOKE + VANYA + MARCELLO
+ RICH + JEN + PETER

For the first time, the people and disciplines that would become Akarii are brought around the same problem.

HOTEL KRAUS · AUG 2026

THE FIRST TABLE

Workshops across Dallas, Paris and London. Immersion in hotels, restaurants, members' clubs and residences — alongside Jacques Garcia Studio, Swoon Interiors, AO Architects and Southern View Hospitality.

2025 → 2030

FIVE-YEAR PARTNERSHIP

A five-year partnership on Hotel Kraus. The relationship deepens. The collective stays together.

2026 · STUDIO AKARII

The collective gets a name. Studio Akarii is officially born — the same ethos, sixty years on.

WITHIN ITS FIRST YEAR · WORKING ACROSS

HOTEL KRAUS · BROADWICK SOHO · BRIDGE GROUP · MAISON KOKOON · WE MOUNTAIN · WE ARE SANCTUM

BEGINNING IN 2027

MARBELLA CLUB · EVLOGIA

THE NAME IS NEW. THE EXPERIENCE ISN'T. Akarii is simply the point where all of those lines finally met.

STUDIO AKARII / SELECTED WORK · CURRENT WORK · ONGOING

Kraus Holdings.

DIGITAL · LED BY ADAM KRAUS · DALLAS, TEXAS

THE COMPANY

A private real estate investment practice with more than $2 billion led in investment, finance and development across the United States, and the development company behind Hotel Kraus.

THE ENGAGEMENT

Following the studio's work on the hotel's brand, Kraus Holdings extended the engagement to the parent company itself: Studio Akarii now leads its corporate digital presence, from first impression through to the investor relationship.

DIGITAL STRATEGY · UX · UI · WEBSITE · DATA ROOM · INVESTOR EXPERIENCE

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / SELECTED WORK · CURRENT WORK · ONGOING

Bridge Group. Building the brand behind the portfolio.

THE BUSINESS

Bridge Group has built a significant property business with a portfolio valued at more than £500m. Studio Akarii's work began with the digital expression of the company and has developed into a wider relationship across brand and property marketing.

THE OPPORTUNITY

Make the strength of the business as visible as the assets it develops, a master brand creating value across the portfolio, while individual developments keep enough character to stand independently.

BRAND DIRECTION · DIGITAL EXPERIENCE · AI TRANSFORMATION · PROPERTY MARKETING · CONTENT STRATEGY

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / A NOTE

SOME OF OUR BEST WORK
ISN'T IN THIS BOOK.

And we're comfortable with that.

Our clients invite us into the parts of their businesses that aren't always meant to be seen.

The early ideas. The workshops. The numbers. The difficult conversations. The opportunities still being shaped. The things that haven't been announced yet.

Some of that work is protected by NDA. Some of it simply belongs in the room where it happened.

We believe there is a difference between doing good work and needing to be seen doing it.

However much of ourselves we put into a project, at the end of the day it is our client's business, their investment, their time and their story.

So we share what we have permission to share.

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / A NOTE

You won't find much of us on social.

That's intentional.

We're designers, writers, strategists, operators and technologists who have spent our careers behind other people's brands.

Most days, we're far more interested in building our clients' worlds than documenting our own.

We're not particularly interested in looking busy.

We're busy building.

And for now, we'd rather put that energy into our clients' worlds than our own.

We're small, and that's the way we like it.

The restaurants people walk into. The brands they remember. The stories they repeat. The technology they never have to think about. The businesses that grow because all of it works together.

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / ONE LAST THOUGHT

KEEP
MOVING.

Marcello Minale, the Italian designer who co-founded Minale Tattersfield in 1964, lived by these words, building a multidisciplinary design company around an instinct to keep moving: across disciplines, markets and new ways of working. For Akarii, they have become a way of thinking about what a modern studio should be.

Design moves. Culture moves. Technology moves. So do the businesses we build for. Our job is to stay curious enough to move between them.

Understand deeply. Find the idea. Follow it wherever it needs to go. Make it work.

WE KEEP YOUR WORK LOCKED DOWN · AND KEEP YOU MOVING.

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / BEYOND THE WORK

SOMETHING THAT MATTERS TO US.

Mental health has touched the families of several people within Akarii, including the Minale family in circumstances that had a profound and lasting impact.

It is not something we want to make a story of. It is simply something we care deeply about.

As Akarii grows, every member of the collective commits some of their time and expertise, without charge, to causes and organisations where we believe we can genuinely help.

A small commitment, but one we intend to grow with.

We also believe in supporting the people doing the difficult work of understanding mental health better, including researchers such as Professor Cyndi Shannon Weickert at NeuRA, whose work contributes to a deeper understanding of the brain and mental illness.

Black Dog's Under the Radar project was developed specifically around men who experience suicidal thoughts but are not engaged with mental-health services. Their research identified barriers including stigma, self-reliance and reluctance to seek help.

We may only play a small part, but we can choose where we put our time, our skills and our support.

In memory of Marcello Minale Snr, 1938–2000, and the families and loved ones who have been affected.

CHARITIES THAT MATTER

Black Dog Institute — Better Mental Health

Some work is worth doing simply because it should be done.

STUDIO AKARII

Figure at a doorway, light breaking through

STUDIO AKARII / THIS IS OURS

We've shown you ours.

We've shared where we come from, the people who shaped us, what we believe in and why we chose to build Akarii together.

We do that because we ask the same openness of our clients.

Now we ask you to step into your own story, the one that existed before it was polished for the market.

Why you started. What you care about. What you see differently. The people, places and experiences that shaped the business. The things you would never want to lose as it grows.

Because that is usually where the most valuable part of a brand is hiding.

Our job isn't to invent meaning around a business. It's to find what is already true, understand why it matters, and give it the confidence to be seen.

YOU BRING THE STORY.
WE'LL TURN THE LIGHT ON.

STUDIO AKARII

STUDIO AKARII / IN THEIR WORDS

Adam & Camille Kraus.

KRAUS HOLDINGS · HOTEL KRAUS

"You've understood what we're trying to build on such a personal level, and then taken it somewhere we couldn't have imagined ourselves. This feels like the beginning of a very long partnership."

"You and your team have genuinely been a dream to work with. The care you've put into this means more to us than you know."

"We haven't met people as dynamic as you and your team. The energy, ideas and commitment you bring are incredibly exciting."

"This is the future of agencies. It feels personal, collaborative and completely different to anything we've experienced before."

"Thank you to you and the whole team for working through Sunday. That level of commitment doesn't go unnoticed. You continually go above and beyond for us."

WhatsApp message from Camille Kraus — 'You are genuinely at the forefront of your entire industry… you are a dream visionary'

FROM CLIENT CORRESPONDENCE · EDITED FOR PUBLICATION, SHARED WITH PERMISSION

STUDIO AKARII