Joyce Wang was on the path to being an architect, studying at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston and Royal College of Art in London, until she found herself craving to work with materials. It was when she moved to Hong Kong, to be closer to her family, that her interior design career took shape. “A pastry chef friend asked me to help design her cake shop and that was the first instance where I really enjoyed the process of thinking about finishes and seeing it all come together,” says Joyce, who opened her studio in Hong Kong thereafter, serving predominantly commercial, rather than residential, clients. “The time frame is quicker than architecture, so you get to see your ideas come alive sooner and that’s really satisfying.”

A defining moment came when the team behind restaurant Ammo asked Joyce to take over the design two months before it was due to open. “The design needed to be done yesterday!” recalls Joyce. “I knew I had a chance and I really trusted myself with my point of view and doing what I wanted with that space.” Since then, Joyce Wang Studio counts Hong Kong restaurants Mott 32 (as well as its Las Vegas, Vancouver and soon-to-be Singapore outposts), Ichu, Spiga, Isono, Haymarket and Rhoda on its portfolio. Hospitality projects here have also included The Landmark Mandarin Oriental – the brand for which prompted Joyce to open her second studio, in London, to facilitate the design of Mandarin Oriental, Hyde Park.

While Joyce is used to adapting to meet varied briefs, a common thread runs throughout her projects. “We always aim to be cinematic,” says Joyce. “I want interiors to be memorable because a lot of my own memories are ingrained in great spaces and a lot of my emotions are driven by architecture. Design can build confidence and I want to do that.”

Product design has given Joyce a freedom beyond this. Born out of clients requesting custom-made furniture, Joyce wanted to work on designs outside of a brief also. “I wanted to expose certain materials and have them seen in a different light,” says Joyce. “So, for example, we work with marble and terrazzo which are usually used for surfaces but we created objects and furniture out of them.” The pieces retail online at The Artling, as well as in a gallery in LA. “I definitely have an appetite for it,” says Joyce.

Growing up travelling with her parents, being born in Hawaii and schooled in the UK and US, and having lived in Delft, London, LA and Hong Kong since, it is clear Joyce’s work is inspired by the many cultures and environments she’s experienced. “LA really excited me,” says Joyce. “I lived there for three years and I worked on the design for Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Being exposed to mid century modernism was at the time very foreign to me. It felt like a completely different world.” In the apartment where we meet – a showroom for a residential development in Hong Kong’s Deep Water Bay – Joyce likened the rolling hills of its surrounding environment to Rio De Janeiro and hence a lot of its design is inspired by Brazilian mid-century modernism. “We used lots of walnut, and cherrywood on the walls, Brazilian antique pieces, green accents of colour and a use of timber in a way that feels luxurious rather than rustic,” Joyce says of the project.

In Joyce’s 2020 pipeline are hospitality projects in Melbourne, London, San Francisco and Tokyo, aside from the “ever-evolving” Hong Kong home that she shares with her husband and three children. In future, her sights are set on a resort – “somewhere hot,” Joyce says, “indoor-outdoor, where the architecture melds with the interior, and it’s more about lifestyle.”