Yabu Pushelberg
George and Glenn talk inspiration, design and what’s next.
Q&a
From W Hotel Times Square to Blue Fin restaurant to Louis Vuitton Hong Kong, Yabu Pushelberg is one of the most in-demand design duos in the world.
When Did Your Fascination with Design Begin?
George Yabu > For me, it began when I wasn’t even a teenager. My dad was an old school boat builder. He made fishing boats on the Pacific coast of Canada, all in wood. More than anything, I recall the beautifully formed tools he brought over from Japan when he immigrated to Canada. The Japanese forged steel tools were exceptionally shaped and required a certain skill-level and finesse to use them.
How Do You Begin the Process of Concepting a Space?
Gy > Although it really helps to be inside the raw space that you’re designing, one doesn’t always have that opportunity immediately. If this is the case, you have to feel the space and sculpt the volume of it, three-dimensionally from a two-dimensional floor plan. It becomes easier with experience.
Do You Have a Dream Destination Location or Project That’s Unlike Anything You’ve Done?
Gy > I would love to design a series of tree houses on a group of tiny islands; some place warm and sultry surrounded by crystalline water. An ecologically sensitive but refined, Robinson Crusoe environment, with just one structure per island.
Of Your Portfolio, Which Project Has Been Most Memorable?
Gy > A most memorable project has been designing our beach house on the Atlantic Ocean in Amagansett, NY. It’s very personal, yet very welcoming. It opens up wide to the outside landscape, so it feels like it belongs in a tropical part of the world rather than in the temperate climate of the eastern end if Long Island.
Where Do You Pull Design Inspiration From?
Gy > I pull design inspiration from traveling abroad, meeting and chatting with people from places so far away and foreign from where I grew up.
Do You Have a Muse?
Gy > My muse is Glenn (laugs), but I am very serious about my answer!
When Traveling, Is There Anything You Absolutely Can’t Live Without?
Gy > Can’t live without on the road? Not much. If I need something, I’ll always find a way to get it with help, of course. One if my personal mottos is: “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.”
What Is the Most Exciting Thing About Tomorrow?
Gy > The anticipation of the new and unknown and to be surprised and delighted by it every day.
Is there an emotion that you want people to feel when entering a space for the first time?
Gy > One should feel transported when entering one of our designed spaces—to a point where you are list in force and time—even if it’s the briefest of moments.
