Atelier Ace's Kelly Sawdon and Studio Shamshiri co-founder Pamela Shamshiri explain their opulent design for New Orleans luxury guesthouse Maison De La Luz in this video produced by Dezeen for the AHEAD Awards
Atelier Ace, the Ace Hotel's in-house creative team, collaborated with Los Angeles design firm Studio Shamshiri to convert a historic New Orleans building into Maison De La Luz, a 67-bedroom boutique hotel.
The hotel was nominated in the Hotel Conversion and Bar Club or Lounge categories at this year's AHEAD Americas hospitality awards, which were shown in a video ceremony as part of Dezeen's Virtual Design Festival after the event was called off due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Last week Dezeen published a video about Sister City, a minimal hotel in New York also designed by Atelier Ace, which won an AHEAD Award in the Visual Identity category. In contrast to Sister City's pared-back interiors, Maison De La Luz offers guests a luxurious experience that references the history and mythology of New Orleans.

"This is our big foray into luxury properties" said Sawdon in the video interview, which was filmed by Dezeen using video conferencing app Zoom.
"It was an opportunity to do something that had Southern elements of hospitality, but with a very unique and unconventional design," she continued.

Studio Shamshiri's interior scheme for the hotel packed its public spaces with a range of furnishings and artworks that draw on New Orleans' multicultural ...