Tara Bernerd’s career in hotel design was kick-started by a project with Aron Harilela, so she was thrilled to be collaborating on a second Hari property, this time in the hospitality businessman’s native Hong Kong. Neither of them could have predicted that the hotel opening, in December 2020, would take place during a global pandemic . “It was exhilarating and at the same time heartbreaking,” Bernerd tells me of the experience when I meet her at The Hari London. The designer temporarily closed the London headquarters of Tara Bernerd & Partners (TB&P) in February 2020, earlier than most businesses in Britain, when she saw how Covid-19 was spreading in Asia. From travelling frequently to meet clients in Asia, Europe and the United States, Bernerd and her team suddenly switched to working remotely. “We reacted pretty fast,” she says. “Completing projects in the midst of global lockdowns has by far been our biggest challenge, but our business adjusted incredibly well. We became very good at Zoom!” While Bernerd is asked to design for private clients – including for a yacht, now on its way to an owner in Hong Kong – hotels and restaurants are her passion. Having worked for Philippe Starck, a pioneer of boutique hotel design, she set up her own business in 2002. And although TB&P became successful designing residential projects for commercial clients, she hankered after a hotel project. Five-star hotel accepts bitcoin and ethereum to woo ‘clients of the future’ Then came the collaboration with Harilela in 2012 on what was London’s Belgrave Hotel (rebranded The Hari in 2016, after Aron’s late father) along with American hotelier Jason Pomeranc of the Thompson Hotels Group. This long-standing relationship, which Bernerd describes as “almost telepathic”, stood her and Harilela in good stead for completing the Hong Kong project while in lockdown on opposite sides of the world. “Much of the design was set in stone by late 2019. However, the connection with Aron, and between our teams, really helped in those crucial final stages before opening,” she says. “We had to work remotely on the dressing for the entire hotel, via video calls and WhatsApp groups.” That dressing included Bernerd directing where exactly books should be positioned on bookcases while staff at the hotel held up smartphone cameras. She must have pulled it off – The Hari Hong Kong scooped the Hospitality Design Awards’ prize for Best Upscale Hotel 2021 in September. Bernerd has still not visited the hotel because of Hong Kong’s quarantine rules (“I’m not the type of person who could stay in a hotel room for three weeks”) but she regularly gets calls from friends who visit the hotel’s bars and restaurants, and so experiences her creation vicariously. She does not believe that the pandemic will have an effect on the needs of hotel design. “What has changed is operational, not design-led,” she says, pointing to the increased emphasis on cleaning and hygiene. We are not always about the design. I’m curious about what needs people have. What is the guest’s expectation of the hotel? What will they feel when they’re staying there? Tara Bernerd, interior designer of The Hari Hong Kong Fortuitously, the public spaces of The Hari Hong Kong were designed from the outset to be as flexible as possible. The sociable Lounge, for instance, has groupings of sofas, chairs and tables that can be rearranged to suit social distancing requirements. “Throughout the hotel, we have tried to keep a connection with nature and this is most apparent on the Terrace [off Zoku, the Japanese restaurant], on the second floor. We worked closely with the architects, Atkins, to introduce a triple-height living wall, which, with the planting on the terrace, brings the feeling of sitting in an oasis in busy Wan Chai.” The Hari is one of three hotels TB&P completed during the pandemic, along with the Zentis Osaka in Japan, and the Thompson Hollywood in the US. The Japanese hotel is the first for a new boutique brand by the Palace Hotel Group. Zentis hotels will “appeal to a savvy, design-conscious traveller”, Bernerd says. The Osaka property is set in its own garden, with floor-to-ceiling glass doors and windows maximising the verdant views from the lobby lounge, bar and restaurant area. The interiors feature light colours, raw materials and sculptural shapes that look wonderfully calming. Bernerd starts planning a hotel’s design between three and six years before opening, so she visited the site several times before the pandemic struck. “Osaka is a really intriguing city, which, on the one hand, has a strong historical heritage and, on the other, is modern, vibrant and colourful,” she says. “We have tried to marry these elements.” Next year, three more Bernerd-designed hotels are due to come to fruition, including the Four Seasons Fort Lauderdale and the Conrad Grand Avenue in Los Angeles. The other, the Rosewood Munich, is the Hong Kong-owned Rosewood Hotel Group’s first in Germany. It is based in the southern city’s old town and the original facade is being retained. “Typically in Munich’s old town, the buildings are inward looking, set around courtyards, and we have worked closely with the architects to help reinstate that. The design itself is a modern interpretation of the classical building with understated luxury, Bavarian culture and a sense of home,” Bernerd says. “Home” is a key term for TB&P. “We are not always about the design. I’m curious about what needs people have. What is the guest’s expectation of the hotel? What will they feel when they’re staying there? “We want to give them a home from home.”