Question: How does your experience with product design translate into hospitality design, and how does the concept of "Designocracy" manifest itself in the hospitality space?

Karim: The concept of Designocracy is that all our everyday objects should be well designed, inexpensive and accessible. That doesn't mean we can't have high-end objects or luxury goods, but that everyday things should all be beautiful, high performing, experiential, interesting and enjoyable. My approach to hospitality is imbued with the same concept. Use and aesthetics should be inseparable, and I don't waver from that philosophy, whether I am designing an interior, a package or a product.

Hospitality design is a wonderful exercise and opportunity for Designocracy, as the design of a space and the objects within a space really have to function, have to create a sensory environment, have to be exquisite, and yet they have to endure frequent and high-volume use. Creating any sort of hospitality interior is exciting because you have this opportunity to immerse people in your designs, create experiences, moments of organic beauty and interaction between objects, space and visitors. My dream is to beautify the world, and when you create an interior, you are designing a wonderful micro-world that is accessible to the masses.

Question: Where are hospitality environments and technology intersecting in new ways, and how does this affect your design process?

Karim: Before this explosion of technology, what the world did not understand is that design is not just a visual exercise, but is about total sensorial human interface, from aesthetics to touch, to navigation, to ease of use, to simplicity, to the total human experience. In terms of hospitality design, this evolution has brought innovative materials and processes, from roto-molded furniture, to two way mirror glass, LEDs, smart interactive interfaces and security systems. We now can create intuitive, responsive design.

Technology has also created a global world, and thus a global consumer. Our lives are borderless—all creative disciplines are blurring, merging, hybridizing, and of course that has a huge influence on design. We not only need to account for how spaces are used in sync with our smartphones, iPads, iPods, laptops, kindles, nooks, and televisions, but the design concept itself must account for how we communicate, how we move, live, and love within our spaces.

Question: Ten years from now, what changes do you hope to see in the hospitality design industry?

Karim: Too often we are relegated to tired archetypes. Design is about shaping contemporaneity. It is critical to our environments, to our daily experiences, our products, our everything, and hospitality design is no exception.

I don't know what the world will look like ten years from now, but I hope that even the cheapest hotels, restaurant and bars will carefully take into consideration the importance of environment to our enjoyment of life, and to the enjoyment of a particular business. From where we sleep, eat and drink, to where we shower, every design within that space needs to beautiful, and needs to make sense in a global world full of information, technology and communication.

The average consumer is not stupid anymore. There is too much information and awareness of the world now. We are not ignorant or myopic or relegated to local markets, local goods or local shops. We can attain and access everything everywhere, and there is no excuse why delightful, smart, intuitive design should not be accessible and inherent in all hospitality design.

Question: Tell us something interesting about yourself.

Karim: 10 Things you didn't know about Karim Rashid until now

1. I did not speak a word until I was 4.
2. I never ever smoked a cigarette or took a drug in my life.
3. I have 11 dreams a night and can remember and recite them all the next morning.
4. I am never bored.
5. I always question and doubt my work.
6. I run 10k a day.
7. I almost became a professional golfer.
8. I had the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck for 1 minute when I was born.
9. I use to be a goal tender in a hockey team.
10. I have never lost a game of scrabble.