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Parts and Labor Design
Ask Andrew Cohen and Jeremy Levitt
of Parts and Labor Design to list the projects they’re working on and there’s a
good chance your head will start spinning. Though their studio in New York’s
Flatiron neighborhood is on the small
side, their output borders on prolific,
encompassing projects from Hong Kong
to Savannah. It makes you wonder
how they get any sleep (let’s just say
that’s a work in progress).
It helps that the duo, who met work-
ing at AvroKO, have complementary
skill sets—Cohen is an architect and Levitt
is an industrial designer. “We’ve always
worked back–to–back—that’s our thing,”
says Cohen. “You need a yin and yang,
a balance in the project, so that one
person is pushing things to places that
the other isn’t going to take them.”
Since they began their partnership in
2009, the gregarious twosome’s designs
have shaped all manner of hospitality
spaces, from restaurants and bars in
New York to hotels in New Orleans and
Nashville. What’s more, they also custom-
design about 90 percent of each project,
including furniture, lighting, and art
installations. While it makes each job
significantly more labor-intensive for the
studio, it’s an essential part of their
process. “Custom works are something
thoughtful—objects that are edited
and designed to solve a design or aes-
thetic problem in a way that purchased
things wouldn’t,” Cohen says.
Parts and Labor’s custom lighting,
for example, evokes a turn-of-the-century
industrial vibe, but it is as suited to the
studio’s design for the Grey—a sleek diner-bar in a historic Art Deco Greyhound
bus terminal in Savannah—as it is to the
glamorous 224-room Thompson Nashville
hotel (a departure from the hotel brand’s
usual aesthetic), which opened in
October 2016.
When pondering how best to
describe their approach to their hospi-
tality spaces, Cohen recalls a quote
he recently read online: “If you’re not
making anybody nervous, you’re not
doing anything special.” They always
work hard to manifest a client’s vision,
he says, but they’re not afraid to suggest
something out of the ordinary. “If no
one’s taking any risks, then you’re not
pushing any boundaries,” he says. “You
can be relentless and not be reckless.
You can be responsible and thoughtful
even though you’re pushing it.”
Recent and upcoming Parts and
Labor projects include the New York–
based coworking space Blender, and
collaborations with several renowned
chefs, including Marcus Samuelsson
(for whom they’ve already done a
restaurant in Bermuda) and Michael
Symon. They’re also creating three
restaurant spaces for the Rosewood
Hong Kong, a multiuse tower that will
open on the Victoria Harbour water-
front in 2018.
All this to say that things aren’t likely
to slow down anytime soon. But Cohen
and Levitt—who anticipate their team of
17 will expand this year—are at ease with
the growth, and both are hungry for new
opportunities to “reinvent the wheel.”
“I think that no matter how old
we are and how long we’ve been doing
this, we will always be learning,” says
Levitt. “The point where we’ve stopped
learning is the point that we just need
to retire.” M
