This week, I sat down with Jacu Strauss, Architect, Designer and Creative Director of Lore Group - the team behind iconic hotels like Sea Containers London, Pulitzer Amsterdam, Riggs Washington DC, Lyle, and 100 Shoreditch.

Jacu’s journey is extraordinary

From growing up in the Kalahari Desert, dreaming up imaginary worlds, teaching himself to draw and paint, and spending Christmases in his grandfather’s 20 room desert hotel… to studying architecture at the Bartlett, landing a role with Tom Dixon, designing Sea Containers having never done a hotel before, and ultimately shaping some of the most distinctive hotels on the planet.

This is creativity, curiosity, and courage in its purest form.

In this episode, Jacu and I dive into…

• Growing up in the Kalahari and learning to “create his own world”
• How a childhood surrounded by nature, storms and stars shaped his visual imagination
• Becoming an architect… in the middle of the 2008 crash
• Joining Tom Dixon’s studio and learning the power of storytelling in design
• Winning the pitch for Sea Containers London without ever having designed a hotel before
• Why hospitality is the ultimate playground of art + science
• How he builds hotels where guests write their own stories
• The importance of imperfection in design (“interiors should be about people”)
• Why comfort beats everything — “great bed, great shower, great materials”
• The unseen touches behind Lore Group hotels
• His philosophy on reducing waste, reusing buildings, and designing sustainably
• How to design when everyone has an opinion - and why the question “Why are we doing this?” matters more than anything
• Creativity, boundaries, and the real joy of experimentation
• The culture required to make creative teams flourish rather than fear mistakes

Quotes from Jacu

“I grew up in the Kalahari Desert… I had to create my own world”

“Creativity is just problem solving”

"Attitude is everything”

“You can’t fool people in a hotel”

“It’s not just about the end product - it’s about the journey”

“Interiors should be about people. Imperfection is the most beautiful thing”

“Smell is sometimes the first impression… sometimes even before you walk into a space”

“I want guests to write their own story, not have an experience forced on them”

"If you skip the first step - experimentation - it’s difficult to complete a project successfully”

“There are no rules in design. You have to create your own rules all the time”

Why this episode is worth your time

If you’ve ever walked into a hotel and thought, “Why does this just… feel good?”

This conversation is the answer.

Jacu brings a rare blend of thoughtful philosophy, meticulous craft, and playful human insight. It’s a deep dive into the creative mind behind some of hospitality’s most beautiful spaces and a reminder that design is really about people, comfort, and emotion, not just aesthetics.

It’s poetic, practical, and properly inspiring

Show Partners

A big shout out to Today’s show partner, RotaCloud, the people management platform for shift-based teams.

RotaCloud lets managers create and share rotas, record attendance, and manage annual leave in minutes — all from a single, web-based app.

It makes work simple for your team, too, allowing them to check their rotas, request holiday, and even pick up extra shifts straight from their phones.

Try RotaCloud’s time-saving tools today by heading to https://rotacloud.com/phil

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