Meet the 2022 Interior Awards jurors: Dajiang Tai

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Dajiang Tai, winner of the Emerging Design Professional Award at the Interior Awards 2014 and 2022 jury member. Image: Toaki Okano

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Renzo Piano’s Atelier Brancusi at the Centre Pompidou in Paris is presented as a museum space containing the studio. Image: Supplied

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The Beijing-Lhasa train crosses six provinces before reaching Tibet, passing grazing yaks in vast Nagqu grassland, snow-blanketed peaks and alpine lakes. Image: Supplied

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Dajiang (DJ) Tai is a principal at Cheshire Architects, where he specialises in commercial hospitality projects of all sizes, having recently completed both the studio’s largest and smallest hospitality venues – The Hotel Britomart and The Parlour at Cafe Hanoi. He also won the Interior Awards Emerging Design Professional award in 2014. Here, DJ tells us about designs that inspire him and what he’s looking forward to when judging this year’s awards.

What’s one of your favourite interior spaces, either here in Aotearoa or abroad, that’s inspired you or your design thinking?

One interior that always comes to mind is the rebuilt studio of Constantin Brancusi at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. I’m not sure whether it was the magnificent sculptures or the smell of all the beautiful carving tools. It felt like everything in the room had its purpose, with a strong history. The tension between the placement of abstract forms and the working bench, where everything happened, was both magical and emotional. The objects in the room felt like walls, columns, furniture, tools or simply sculptures.

Renzo Piano’s Atelier Brancusi at the Centre Pompidou in Paris is presented as a museum space containing the studio. Image: Supplied

If you could design an interior project for anyone, who would it be and why?

There is a train that departs from Beijing to Lhasa every night, and it’s a 40-hour ride across 4000 kms, carrying passengers from all sorts of ethnicities, speaking different dialects. I loved that the exterior view changes constantly with varying landscapes and seasons while the interior remains static. It would be wonderful to think of a train like a mini-city and design a complete interior that responds to a meaningful encounter of a temporary home, a vessel where people meet and socialise, then depart. A chamber of self-reflection.

What will you be looking forward to while judging the Interior Awards 2022?

Interiors that have “broken some rules” and re-evaluated how materials are perceived. Ideas that are like the best movie endings… most-logical but unexpected. The clarity in the execution of the idea that’s been delivered with care. Interiors that respect our culture and are a celebration of craft. Projects that demonstrate interpretations of sustainability and how it is manifested.