Meet the fresh entries to this year's Top 100
The House & Garden Top 100 Interior Designers & Architects list aims to be a dynamic, up-to-date collection of the best of British talent. This means acknowledging the familiar names and the well-established practices, but also keeping up with the new faces and those who have done particularly beautiful work in the last year. This year the list has added eight designers, architects and companies who have never featured on it before, and who cover a range of styles, from antique-filled country houses to modern renovations of city flats. Here we've gathered the designers and architects themselves and their loveliest projects (many of which have featured in the magazine) by way of welcome.
The Top 100 and House & Garden Awards are published in our June issue, out now. You can download House & Garden on your iPhone, iPad or Android device now or subscribe today to get your issue for just £1
Kate Peters1/8Miminat Designs
A polymath who has a background in fine art and a degree in interior architecture, Mimi Shodeinde creates cool, contemporary interiors (she has current projects in London, Portugal and Kuwait), and furniture that is aimed at the collector end of the market.
Simon Upton2/8Craig Hamilton Architects
This practice has built a very solid reputation for its work with traditional architecture, including newbuilds in the classical style. A London house designed by Craig Hamilton won a commendation at The Georgian Group’s Architectural Awards. Gail Kenton, who cites Passivhaus design as an influence, has rejoined the firm after a five-year stint at ADAM Architecture.
Milo Brown3/8Lonika Chande
Since winning House & Garden’s The List Award for Design Talent in 2020, Lonika Chande has been busy with a string of largely London-based houses. Her look is on the modern side of decorative, with patterned fabrics, strong colours and a mix of old and new. ‘I love French post-Impressionist art, particularly Gauguin, and this has definitely influenced my work,’ she says. Lonika and her team are currently working on houses in Margate, Chelsea, Hackney and Notting Hill.
Michael Sinclair4/8Nina Litchfield Studios
There is a fantastic energy in the projects we have seen by Nina Litchfield and her team, which includes right-hand woman Blanca Pérez González, the studio’s senior architectural director. Rules about how to use colour and pattern are thrown out of the window to dramatic effect, perhaps because of the studio’s international background. Nina, who cites the American designers Billy Baldwin and Stephen Gambrel as big influences, was born in Brazil and raised in Germany, while Blanca is Spanish.
Andrew Montgommery5/8Remy Renzullo
This decorator, who grew up in Connecticut, now divides his time between London and New York, and has projects on both sides of the pond. Occupying much of Remy Renzullo’s attention right now is the decoration of parts of Castle Howard in Yorkshire. ‘It will forever be a career high,’ he says. Quite different is his work in the former home of the late architect IM Pei: ‘It’s an iconic piece of modernist architecture; I love to be challenged by an interior.’ A decorating Anglophile at heart, he says Geoffrey Bennison’s interiors are among his key influences – ‘the high watermark of 20th-century decoration’.
Andrew Montgomery6/8J James Mackie
It is extraordinary to think that just three years ago, James Mackie was still heading up Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art department. He had worked in auction houses for most of his career before deciding to establish an interior decorating studio and art advisory. ‘I met Chester Jones when I was at Sotheby’s,’ he says. ‘I greatly admire the way he incorporates art and design into the interiors he creates. Looking at his work was a significant inspiration.’ Major projects soon came in, including a barn conversion and the decoration of a 17th-century manor house with architect Ptolemy Dean.
Jake Curtis7/8Elicyon
Charu Gandhi had worked for a number of different architectural firms and developers (including Candy & Candy) before she set up Elicyon in 2014.
A creative and incredibly engaging designer, Charu leads a team of nearly 30 interior designers, architects and project managers, and takes on big projects, from country houses to high-end urban developments. Elicyon operates at the luxury end of the market and its designs are highly detailed, but also filled with interesting art and distinctive, one-off pieces.
David Jensen8/8Stone Hollond
Josh Stone and Phoebe Hollond set up their own studio in 2020. Previously, Josh had worked for Caroline Paterson for nearly a decade and says she encouraged him to express his personality
in his schemes. Phoebe worked for years under Beata Heuman, who taught her there should be no limits to bravery in creativity. Notable current projects include a modernist house in Surrey and an ‘Art Deco meets California’ penthouse in the former BBC Television Centre in west London.
