Kevin Underwood, until recently, acted as the Global Head of Hospitality at HKS, one of the world’s leading architecture and design firms, where he’s had a hand in shaping some of the most notable destinations across the world by combining design with a deep understanding of operational functionality.
Plenty of hotels look like they were signed off by brand consultants, with no one in the room who’s ever actually carried a tray. Kevin is the antithesis, insisting that good design is not about aesthetics, but something that shows up in your RevPAR, in the repeat guest, and in the rhythm of operations.
Today marks the start of Kevin’s next chapter post HKS. The launch of a new design and consultancy firm. Built on the pillars he has always embodied, this venture is rooted in his belief that great hospitality design begins with emotional intelligence.
We discuss those pillars here. I hope you enjoy reading our conversation.
From Standardisation to Sensitivity: Designing for Emotion
The hospitality sector likes to talk about the guest experience. Companies produce brand decks filled with words like “connection” and “memory.” But scratch the surface, and operational logic sometimes goes missing. Many operators can list the ideal decibel level for air conditioning. Fewer can articulate effectively how the physical environment was engineered to achieve the optimal dwell time. Operational excellence, when done well, completely disappears into the background, leaving only the seamless flow of a customer journey.
Kevin is convinced that the best operators take an anthropologist’s view. They study the “tribes” they cater to, their rituals and idiosyncrasies. He points to the Junto Institute’s “wheel” of emotions. It is a map of the human emotional spectrum. At the top you can find fear and caution. At the bottom are love, joy, and surprise. The latter, he says, is the currency of hospitality.
Kevin: So what’s happening recently in hospitality? You’ve got brands like Baccarat that have done a lot of research into their tribe. They’re the ones with proactive “guest mapping” in their thinking. That kind of community-building exercise? You just don’t see it in most operators’ design standards. A decade ago, we designed for the photograph. The brief was to create a perfect social media moment. Guests would take the shot, that was the marketing. It isn’t now. A memory is a story. A story is a reason to come back. That’s where the numbers move…occupancy that holds in the off-season. It’s not sentimentality… it’s strategy. Every hotel lobby is a social field and the anthropologist in hospitality starts by mapping movement. Where does the tribe cluster? How long do they stay in each setting? What prompts them to transact or leave?
A wellness-led tribe may flow between the spa and health-focused dining options without ever touching the lobby bar. If your F&B revenue model depends on that bar, the design must intercept their physical movement. These emotional blueprints aren’t abstract ideas. They dictate the hard numbers, such as your room mix, how you staff, even what kind of retail makes sense in the ancillary spaces.
Adiona: From a developer’s perspective, it’s critical to hire design firms that have a holistic grasp of the standard operating procedures of a luxury hotel. If brand standards dictate that a server must deliver wine within two minutes from the guest placing the order, how does the design enable effective circulation from the back-of-house to the service points?
Kevin: That’s exactly why we have economists in-house. They sit with us during the design process so we can evaluate every decision through both a creative and financial lens. It’s design and economics working hand in hand. The market will continue to reward those who understand whom they serve and who translate that connection into measurable performance. The rest will keep producing hotels that look good in renderings but underperform in reality.
The Corporate Constraint
That adds another layer to the already complex challenge. For big public groups, staying close to tribes is hard. Consumer preferences are moving faster than the renovation cycles. Shareholder scrutiny slows everything. By the time governance has done its rounds, the tribe has already moved on.
So the answer for many groups has been to buy cult brands instead of building them. Ennismore. Habitas. Founder-led, tribe-driven and already working. You cut execution risk and buy cultural currency in one move.
The risk is obvious: once you incorporate a brand into corporate, you risk sanding off the DNA that made it work in the first place. The tribal methodologies that built its following can be dulled by standardisation. This is the tension in hospitality today… authenticity versus scale, intent versus performance.
Kevin: Yes. Well, hopefully, those creator brands will keep coming, and people will focus on mission driven properties. Because you’re right. Especially the luxury traveler and the luxury consumer, they are discerning and they do demand the full understanding of their needs from the brand. So hopefully that’s going to push the needle in how we approach space programming.
Adiona: I think Peninsula and the pipeline that they are building over the next five years is a good example. The brand is focused on slower growth, high quality strategy that favors long term positioning over rapid scale. The “Peninsula Perspectives” campaign recentered the brand on the diverse stories of their staff. So essentially what they are doing is securing a long-term consumer through heritage storytelling, positioning themselves toward a more socially conscious luxury that resonates with experience focused guests. With that anthropology context in mind, do you see hotels becoming more intentional in how they address the amenities mix?
Kevin: Absolutely… That is our challenge, merging all of those elements. The shift we’re seeing is that amenities are no longer ‘extras’ but central to the identity of the property. Spas and wellness are increasing in scope on a lot of our projects, but that needs to be carefully curated, as the cost per sqft is very high. Medical SPAs are also under additional regulatory scrutiny. So those changes are very dynamic and very evident. And we need to stay ahead of the curve on them. That balance of anthropology plus economics is what keeps a hotel relevant long after opening.
Adiona: Too many projects get chopped into silos…rooms here, F&B there… when in reality a hotel works as one organism. That’s why I love hospitality: everything collides. Where else do you get people celebrating birthdays, anniversaries, Mother’s Day, or simply escaping for a holiday all under the same roof? It’s a conductor´s view to human life.
The real business of hospitality is not selling rooms. It is selling a feeling…one that guests will pay to experience again. The trick is knowing which feelings move the numbers.
