China, an exciting canvas for hospitality design (3)

Since Nagata founded Blink in 2006, the firm has worked on large-scale master planning right down to product and industrial design - and even brand identity and motion pictures.

Its impressive client roster includes big-name hoteliers such as Jumeirah, Dusit and Hyatt, as well as helping to cement brands such as Bluebird for Mercedes-Benz.

The firm currently has offices in Bangkok, its creative hub; Singapore, its business hub; New Delhi, its production hub; and a studio in Shanghai to fit its swelling Chinese client base.

Nagata has witnessed the exponential changes in China reflected in his own industry, with the most recent being increasingly more idiosyncratic properties, a far cry from the bigger-is-better mentality of a decade ago.

"To design a 500-key hotel with three to four restaurants was very common," he recalls. "Hotel designs today have shifted to become smaller and more individual. We already can see the transformation in first-tier cities.

"Also the design in areas like Shanghai and Beijing has matured, so less flashy, less glitzy design is more widely acceptable. However, there will be a huge push to develop resorts in other areas of China besides Sanya. The Chinese market needs weekend destinations that are an hour's drive or so from urban areas."

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