From futuristic, rainbow-colored workplaces to swanky lounge spaces, Pacific Northwest design disruptor Andee Hess is pushing her artistic side from Portland to Seoul and beyond.
Andee Hess, photographed by Andrew Vanasse for GRAY at Oaks Park Roller Skating Rink in Portland on March 9, 2020. Hess recently redesigned the snack bar for the long-loved rink, which has seen many evolutions since opening in 1905. Hair/makeup by Kylie Salee, styling by Kidessa Shattuck.
Interior designer Andee Hess revels in the unknown—that open abyss preceding every creative project, where the possibilities are infinite and the potential for self-doubt almost as high.
While some designers scramble to fill this space with spinoffs of work they’ve done before, or latch onto the Pinterest mood boards their clients create, Hess pushes herself to hold steady. “We take on projects only if there’s time in the scope dedicated to conceptual exploration,” she says. “That means defining and recognizing your core values—really taking the time to understand how and why you’re drawn to certain things, why you and your client make certain decisions. It’s an exercise that hopefully helps us dodge trends.”
This resolute commitment to conceptually rich designs that will outlast their 15 minutes of Instagram fame is what defines Hess and her Portland-based studio, Osmose Design, which she founded in 2007. Despite her trend aversion, Hess has steadily emerged as one of the region’s most sought-after designers, her vibrant graphic language setting her apart in a sea of monochromatic Pacific Northwest minimalism. Her portfolio includes a futuristic, rainbow-colored workplace for a software company; a dark, moody, Art Deco-inspired tasting room for a craft distiller; and a suburban home modeled on the concept of a surreal Italian disco. Most recently, she completed a ’70s-inflected redesign of the snack bar in Portland’s beloved Oaks Park Roller Rink. While some designers might turn up their noses at the idea of designing a snack bar, Hess is seduced by oddball assignments. “I’m always looking for new project types that are in a different realm or a new industry,” she says, her curiosity palpable. “The variety of what I get to explore is so exciting—that’s one of my favorite things about design.”
Hess’s design for Carioca Bowls, a Portland-based açaí café, took inspiration from the vibrant lifestyle and colors of Rio de Janeiro. The hanging ceiling sculpture and hand-dyed textiles are reminiscent of clear skies and ocean water. “I’m always looking for project types in a different realm or a new industry,” she says. “The variety of client types I get to work with is extremely exciting to me.” Photographed by Dina Avila, courtesy Osmose Design.
Across her residential and commercial work, Hess has created a raucous set of environments that delight the senses even as they verge on the fantastical. Year after year, she has honed a signature style that’s aesthetically rich in its dense layering of colors and textures, but also resonates more deeply, each project communicating something of the client’s identity. Her combination of conceptual depth and visual play has fueled design disrupter Osmose Design’s steadily growing influence. Hess is currently crisscrossing the globe as she develops a new café concept for Baskin-Robbins in Seoul. As creative director for the new freestanding five-story Seoul outpost, she is designing custom lighting and furniture and has commissioned Pacific Northwest artists to create large installations throughout the building.
In creating this Portland residence for Chris Cantino and Jamie Schmidt, founders of the Schmidt’s Naturals brand, Hess integrated ’70s-era design elements such as louche shag carpeting and a rich, saturated color palette. The bespoke sofa was built by InHouse and the tables—a custom Osmose design—are crafted of amber onyx tops and powder-coated metal bases. Photographed by Dina Avila, courtesy Osmose Design.
Even as Osmose grows, Hess remains staunchly rooted in the Pacific Northwest. “One of the really exciting things is our ability to stay small but have a growing influence,” she says. Hess’s designs for iconic Portland exports Stumptown Coffee and Salt & Straw Ice Cream have gone viral as the brands open shop in locales across the US, but she resists the label of Portland design poster child. “We definitely have people from out of state who say to us, ‘We want that Portland aesthetic.’ But I’ve worked really hard to skate around that. We have a responsibility: we are involved in the built environment. People are working and living and investing in these spaces—it’s more than a graphic design or a staging exercise for me. Design has a real impact on multiple levels. It’s not just an image that gets thrown away.” Often this concern manifests in custom pieces Hess designs for her projects in collaboration with local makers and artisans. These bespoke elements activate her kaleidoscopic environments, allowing them to come to life in the real world and not serve as mere clickbait in the digital realm.
The Schmidt master bedroom features a Scarpa-inspired stepped velvet headboard and a ceiling niche of palladium-leafed wallpaper. Hess was drawn to the light fixture for its distinctive shape, which she describes as “a sculptural abstraction of a chandelier.” Photographed by Dina Avila, courtesy Osmose Design.
Hess’s background in fabrication and material studies—after working in her father’s leather-repair business, she developed a passion for welding and made custom wine tanks as co-owner of a metal fabrication studio in the late 1990s—keeps her grounded in the physical, even as the world of design increasingly turns to the digital. “I started with a bare-bones understanding of how materials intersect and work together, rather than starting from aesthetic interest,” she says. “At Osmose, we’re looking at real materials, and of course I want our designs to be fun and exciting, but in a more meaningful way.”
Hess is using 2020 to kick off a new concept phase in her own creative process, exploring artist residency opportunities in locations around the world as she continues her design projects. When asked what she’ll do with that uninterrupted creative time, she says, “I want to get back into metalwork or ceramics, or maybe something I’m completely unfamiliar with. That line between interior design and art, function versus experience—that’s a really interesting topic I want to explore.”
Hess describes her design for this tasting room at Portland’s House Spirits Distillery as “Art Deco-futurism.” The reinforced aluminum inlay shelving and warm Douglas fir details were fabricated by Acme. Photographed by Ken Hayden, courtesy Osmose Design.
Although it’s infinitely exciting for Hess to dive into the blank space of creative possibility, she admits it doesn’t come without discomfort. Yet for her, fear is part of the process. “Every year, I challenge myself to do something that scares me. So, if calling myself an artist is the thing that scares me, then that’s my challenge now.”
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