Design Showcase: New Blood
Matthew Esposito
06/01/2008

Yacht design is a profession that offers little room at the top. With relatively few projects available compared to those in the home design sector, outsiders face an uphill battle breaking in and breaking through the ceiling to become widely known. But there are young people and newcomers in the pipeline who aspire to rise to the prominence achieved by the titans of the business. Here are three up-and-comers who are challenging the status quo.

A 31-year native of the Pacific Northwest, Adriel Rollins grew up a part of almost everything nautical on Puget Sound. Most recently, he was an independent contractor with Delta Marine and principal designer for the company’s recent 47-meter launch Mr. Terrible.

Yacht interiors call for more built-in décor than residential designs and feature an immense amount of detailed artistry. Adriel Rollins’ images above illustrate design concepts becoming realities. Photography by Adriel Rollins. (Click image to enlarge)

Every paycheck earned by Adriel Rollins has been in the marine industry. Such a statement goes far to demonstrate a person’s passion for and, in this case, expertise in a certain field. Early hands-on training as a marine mechanic laid the groundwork for Rollins’ successful design career and his reputation for thinking through every last detail. Subsequent marine jobs followed him through his studies in industrial design. As a technical writer and illustrator for production boatyards, he furthered his understanding of the boatbuilding process. While working with designer Scott Cole at Ardeo Design, Rollins found he needed to venture outside the studio to see how the designs being plotted on paper came to fruition in a shipyard environment.

Top: Rollins attends to overlooked places such as the passerelle. Bottom: He was commissioned to design a multi-story glass atrium staircase, a complicated interior element. Photography by Adriel Rollins. (Click images to enlarge)

Landing a post as an independent contractor for Delta Marine in 2001 was a perfect fit. The designer had long admired the quality of the yard’s work and was soon embraced as a multi-faceted creative resource for the production of its custom motor yachts. While at Delta, Adriel played an integral part in the design of yachts such as Triton, Happy Days and Mr. Terrible. Daily he interacted with yacht owners, designers and decorators to make sure the details of their interiors could be completed, and then oversaw the process by working with the yard’s craftsmen on each design.

"This [process] confirmed my belief that design and craftsmanship must work in tandem," says Rollins.

Since his days at Delta Marine, Rollins has turned his efforts to a new endeavor—establishing Adriel Design Inc. with two other partners. The firm keeps busy consulting on everything from exterior styling to interior design, as well as the design and construction of individual design elements. Currently the group is at work on an art-glass wall and atrium for a 45-meter McMullen and Wing motor yacht that is under way in New Zealand. Designing and constructing the three-story atrium stair has taken numerous studies and close cooperation with the glass artist. The yacht’s owner, having seen Rollins’ interior work aboard several Delta yachts, contacted him to become involved with the project.

Though versed in all areas of yacht design, the firm does have some interior-specific attributes. One of the partners, a trained furniture maker, has worked with notable interior designer Philippe Starck and architect Charles Gwathmey. Rollins himself has become somewhat of an expert, with many of his custom interiors winning awards. One of Rollins’ trademarks is to use interesting materials in uncommon applications, as in his ever-present stainless steel detailing. Polished stainless steel inlay is constant in the woods and soft furnishings of his interiors.

Photography by Adriel Rollins. (Click images to enlarge)

"[Stainless steel] is just the right material to define shapes and can always be used in an artful way," Rollins says.

What’s next for the firm? Perhaps a new idea its namesake is eager to explore: a rugged luxury yacht unlike today’s explorer vessels that is capable of cruising remote areas such as the Arctic and Southern Ocean. Of course, the concept vessel would leave a minimal carbon footprint and would possibly feature an all-"green" interior.

"It’s exciting to be a young designer when such a thing as an all-green interior is no longer impossible," Rollins says. "I’m looking forward to being an agent of change when the industry and technologies are ready." Contact Adriel Design Inc. at 206-282-0965. www.adrieldesign.netRussian-born Igor Lobanov runs a design studio in London where the focus is on private plane and yacht design. After taking the position as owner’s representative for the megayacht project Sigma, Lobanov turned his copious automotive design experience toward things more aeronautical and nautical.

After finishing a bachelor’s degree in science at Moscow State University and first- and second-year studies in transport design in Turin, Italy, Igor Lobanov worked with the Volkswagen exterior design department for a year before turning to yachting. In 2003, Lobanov was appointed owner’s representative for the Blohm and Voss-built, 123-meter yacht Sigma, designed by Philippe Starck. The project clearly had an impact on Lobanov because he soon turned from automobile to yacht and plane design with the founding of his company Lobanov Ltd. in 2007. While looking to garner comprehensive interior/exterior design projects in the future, things are going well for the firm. It currently has three contracts for exterior design and general arrangements on motor yachts ranging from 40 to 120 meters. Lobanov is also involved with the interior design of a 49-meter project and the interior refit of a 60-meter shadow vessel.

Igor Lobanov’s previous automotive design career influences his chic spaces. He has a strong relationship with 3-D forms and begins designing with models rather than drawing boards. (Click images to enlarge)

The designer, who thinks and shapes more like a "yacht sculptor," has always enjoyed the early stages of design, such as the sketching and imagining of surfaces and shapes. In fact, each concept begins with clay half-models of the yachts set against a mirror, in the way of car designers.

"This [design method] helps to understand shape and balance and to make a complete thing," says Lobanov.
 

Igor Lobanov. (Click image to enlarge)

The company’s approach to design eliminates definitive side and top views, instead blending hull and superstructures in a new, unified way. "We have a more three-dimensional approach to the design of the yacht than is usual," says Lobanov. "More attention is paid to shape, proportions and surfaces."

Nowhere is this more evident than with the concept for the 105-meter luxury yacht White Night. Developed in two different color schemes, the White Night/Dark Angel design is like a ripple on the water. The sleek, stealth design with its 3-D hull and endless flat teak surfaces seems like a luxury patrol cruiser out to stalk the myriad famed and notorious ports of the Mediterranean and beyond. (Think Lex Luthor’s yacht in "Superman Returns.")

Another of Lobanov’s concepts is Liza, an elegant 100-meter yacht. Less conceptual than the White Night/Dark Angel design, Liza is a clean, elegant and handsome new perspective on the modern motor yacht exterior. A brief glance at her GA also shows some forward thinking—thinking destined to no doubt shake things up a bit when we see the firm’s interior projects come to fruition. Contact Lobanov Ltd. at +44 207 748 0820. www.lobanov.co.ukSenior partner Diana Scott founded Sterling Scott Yacht Design in 2007. Since its inception, the firm’s Monaco office has been working on projects ranging from 40 to 125 meters. Its first launch, the 72-meter Red Square, is due in spring 2010. The vessel will feature an interior design by Alberto Pinto.

Diana Scott’s designs are sexy, glamorous and classic—a blend of originality and timeless style. An industry veteran since the age of 17, Scott has worked for companies such as Oceanfast and Feadship, honing her talent for interior and exterior design along the way. Adding to this process have been a few once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, such as working with the late designer Jon Bannenberg. Currently Scott is using her engineering background and creative drive to focus on exterior styling and general arrangements. She is quick to acknowledge, however, that the two are not easily separated, and so she arranges interior spaces to flow in unison with the exterior profile.

Diana Scott’s fresh design perspective places a helipad on the bow or a glass portal in the hull’s bottom. Projects are expected to launch from her new firm in the next two years. (Click images to enlarge)

"To achieve harmony throughout all areas of yacht design is a challenge of design problem solving that I most enjoy," says Scott.

The designer also enjoys getting to know her clients and developing concepts that uniquely satisfy their tastes. In addition to the yacht Red Square, in production at Turkey’s Dunya Shipyard, Sterling Scott has a client building two 70-meter vessels to the firm’s designs. Scott’s design firm is also engaged in a competition with three other well-known firms for a 125-meter project.

Perhaps what sets Scott’s aesthetic apart is her ability to combine the logistic and the artistic for a harmonious—and timeless—whole. The child of a painter (mother) and wooden-yacht builder (father), she spent much of her childhood sailing the globe, eventually becoming the conduit for her parents’ passions. Growing up in this environment and coming of age in some of the world’s finest custom shipyards, Scott developed a unique understanding of the yacht design process.

Diana Scott. Photograph by Simon Round. (Click image to enlarge)

"Externally, yachts are representative of power, luxury and personality," she says. "They are floating islands that create privacy from the rest of the world. In this sense, they are magical and must always be created to capture this excitement."

With this astute outlook in hand, Scott and her Monaco-based firm have been impressing clients and winning commissions that will undoubtedly catapult them to the next level. Contact Sterling Scott Yacht Design at +377 97 98 30 27. www.sterlingscott.com