About

The ·
Designer

A curious kid from Baltimore who asked too many questions,
ended up in New York,
and found his answer in designed experience.

Chike Maduabuchi

New York

8+Years in Practice

5Firms

3Countries

C→CAFull Lifecycle

NCIDQ Certified National Council for Interior Design Qualification

The Story

"It started with Spy Kids, a very curious mother, and a question I've never stopped asking: who makes that?"

I was maybe eight years old when Spy Kids came out — a landmark film for millennials, as you know. I was less interested in the action and more fascinated by the gadgets. So I did what any only child with too much time and a patient mother would do: I asked. Mom, who makes those things? She said: an engineer.

That one word sent me down a path that led to Baltimore Polytechnic Institute — one of the country's top engineering high schools. I showed up ready to build things. What I discovered was that I had a specific kind of curiosity: not just how things work, but how they feel. Engineering was the right foundation. It wasn't the destination.

Architecture came next, at Morgan State University — where I was already working at Marks Thomas Architects in Baltimore before I even graduated. I stayed on there after finishing my degree, learning what the profession actually looked like from the inside, before making a decision that changed everything: I packed up and moved to New York.

New York meant the New York School of Interior Design for graduate school — and a full pivot into the world I'd been circling. Interior design, hospitality, the intersection of brand and built environment. It clicked immediately.

From NYSID, I was recruited into Rockwell Group — where hospitality design is treated as performance art and every project is a world unto itself. Four years of FF&E, custom drawings, shop drawing review, purchase orders, and on-site staging. Projects that taught me what it means to hold a vision together from concept through the day someone opens the door for the first time.

A chapter with Adjaye Associates sharpened a different muscle — civic and cultural architecture, where materiality and spatial permanence are everything. From there, Jeffrey Beers International, where the scale expanded to resort-level hospitality with international reach. F&B villages in Mexico, lobby programs, concept development from the ground up.

Eight years in, across five firms and three countries, the through-line is clear: I am most alive when I'm figuring out how a brand becomes a built experience — when the vision in the brief is the same vision that greets the first guest.

Career Path

During +
After School

Marks Thomas Architects

Baltimore, MD · Now Mosley Architects

Began working here while studying architecture at Morgan State University. Stayed on after graduating — first real exposure to professional practice, documentation, and how design moves from drawing to building. Also interned at the Federal Reserve Board during summers of 2017 and 2018.

Graduate

New York School of Interior Design

New York, NY

Graduate program that marked the full pivot into interior design and the move to New York. Where the hospitality design world opened up.

4 Years

Rockwell Group

New York, NY

Hospitality and entertainment at the highest level. FF&E, specifications, shop drawings, purchase orders, and on-site staging. Includes 1 Hotel Toronto — full scope from concept through construction administration.

Adjaye Associates

New York, NY

Cultural and civic architecture. Deepened an approach to materiality, spatial sequence, and design at a civic scale.

2022 –
Present

Jeffrey Beers International

New York, NY · Senior Interior Designer

Resort hospitality at scale. Concept through construction administration across F&B, guestrooms, lobbies, and amenity programs. International project delivery including site visits to Puerto Vallarta and vendor coordination across three countries.

How I Work

01

Vision First

Every project starts with the question a client usually can't answer directly: what does this place need to make people feel? I work backward from that — building the design narrative before the first line is drawn, so every material and spatial decision is in service of something specific.

02

Concept to Completion

I've worked every phase — concept decks, schematic layouts, design development, construction documents, shop drawing review, purchase orders, and on-site staging. That full-lifecycle view shapes how I approach each individual phase: I know what decisions get made later, so I make the right ones now.

03

In the Room

Some of the most important design decisions happen on site — in a vendor's workshop in Puerto Vallarta, in a staging area in Toronto, in a DC lobby the week before handover. I've always been in those rooms. The gap between drawing and built work is where most projects lose their vision, and I work to close it.

Disciplines

Resort Hospitality

Full-scope resort design — lobbies, F&B, guestrooms, spa, and back-of-house coordination. Understanding the brand, the operator, and the guest in the same breath.

Entertainment Environments

Recording studios, cultural spaces, experiential amenities. Places where atmosphere is the product and every material choice either deepens or breaks the spell.

Wellness & Lifestyle

Residential amenities, spa environments, and spaces designed around how people restore themselves — where design serves wellbeing rather than just aesthetics.

Cultural & Civic

Institutional and civic-scale work that grounded an approach to materiality and permanence that carries into every subsequent project type.

FF&E & Procurement

Specifications, shop drawing review, purchase order coordination, OS&E sourcing, and on-site staging. The supply chain is part of the design — and I manage it as such.

Concept Direction

Pre-concept decks, brand-to-space translation, AI-assisted image direction. Building the visual and narrative language of a project before documentation begins.

Connect

Sayhello.

New York City · NCIDQ Certified · Hospitality · Entertainment · Wellness · Culture

LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/chikemaduabuchi ↗