Why best hotel in the world designer Bill Bensley now faces his most ambitious project
- Bill Bensley has created more than 200 whimsical and fantastical properties in 30-plus countries, including one awarded world’s best in 2020
- A new book chronicles 12 of his most recent projects, which include a range of uber-luxe tented camps in Asia. Now he’s heading to the Congo rainforest
If you feel a distinct joie de vivre walking into a Bill Bensley-designed establishment, that’s exactly what its maker intended.
Throughout the more than 30 years since he started his eponymous design studio Bensley in a Bangkok garage, work has been “all about play” for the architect, landscaper and interior designer who trained at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
He and his team of more than 100 are a maverick bunch, living by the motto: if it’s not fun, don’t do it.
Wild ideas? Bring them on!
We’re on a Zoom call to discuss his latest book, More Escapism, published by Thames & Hudson. A lengthy tome of 500-odd pages and weighing 5.5kg (12lb), it’s a glorious, page-turning photo essay chronicling the 12 most recent projects of the world-renowned hotel designer, whose “crazy” mind has conjured up more than 200 whimsical and fantastical properties in 30-plus countries.
And he’s excited. Why? Because that book has just landed him his most ambitious project yet, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.