Each Project By This International Interiors Studio is More Than “Nice” — It’s a Self-Contained Jewel

Whoever said “nice guys finish last” clearly never met designers Sacha Leong and Simone McEwan. Since they started their London-based studio, Nice Projects, five years ago, the duo has completed a string of hospitality interiors that each has a distinctly expressive identity rooted in context, a strong focus on natural materials and local craft, and a touch of magic that has helped the dining spots soar in popularity.

Creating “nice projects with nice people” may seem like a simple concept, but Leong, who grew up in Singapore, and Australian-born McEwan have used this approach to their advantage by collaborating closely with chefs they admire, friends in the furniture industry they’ll frequently tap for custom designs, and clients with whom they have a shared vision. Both worked at the acclaimed firm Studio Ilse for five years before starting Nice Projects together in 2020. With more than 30 years combined experience at Universal Design Studio (Leong), Soho House (McEwan), and many more top names between them, they decided it was time to craft their own vision for a studio that prioritizes making the process enjoyable for themselves and their clients. “We were a bit frustrated at some point with the level of rigidity and the layers of complication involved in some of these big projects and big firms,” admits Leong. “The best clients are ones we’ve become friends with, with whom it’s a conversation and we can be very transparent with.”

The pair hit the ground running with a series of hospitality projects across Europe and Southeast Asia. An experimental and unexpected approach to materials has imbued each with a unique look and feel, though all have a traceable thread of warmth, humor, and playful details. “All of our spaces have a strong personality, and are hopefully not those where you’d say ‘Oh, I’ve seen that before’,” Leong says. “I think we’re quite inventive in that way.”

Take Odem, a Korean makgeolli bar and restaurant in Singapore’s trendy New Bahru hub, where pale wood panels are charred in the center but left raw at the top and bottom, creating a brushed effect along the blackened edges. Red-stained timber chairs made with Seoul-based designers Studio Word are paired with custom granite-topped tables, while the bar counter is clad in handmade ceramic tiles that reference the black earthenware pots traditionally used for fermenting rice wine. Then there’s The Coconut Club, located in the same Singaporean neighborhood, which features a wavy bamboo ceiling woven by Indonesian artisans, stainless steel banquettes with rattan benches and backrests, and sunny yellow tiles covering the walls. In another restaurant, Claudine, Nice Projects worked with artist Herman de Vries to press foraged native grasses into glass panels that wrap the interior of a restored 1930s chapel, while a 50-foot-long custom light by Santa & Cole snakes overhead.

McEwan recently relocated back to Australia, and the small team expanded to Singapore and Japan, so Nice Projects is now an international, 24-hour operation that “makes us more agile” according to Leong. The studio has also completed several residential projects and has its sights set on a hotel, while confirmed upcoming projects range from an eatery for a young chef on Paris’s Île Saint-Louis, a Kyoto tea house converted into a research lab, and a refresh of the three Michelin star restaurant in Singapore’s National Gallery. Here, at least, “nice” is clearly paying off.