2016 Design Award for Emerging Designer: Hannah Collins

A YEAR AND HALF INTO STRIKING OUT ON THEIR OWN, MOST YOUNG DESIGNERS ARE STILL STRUGGLING, not Hannah Collins of Hannah Collins Design. With seven restaurants — among them Birba, Belga, Beretta and the recently opened Delarosa Downtown — as well as a string of residential projects under her belt, the San Francisco designer has arrived. Paying tribute to her grandmother, a ceramic artist who Collins credits for cultivating her spatial awareness, a talent she honed at The Academy of Art in San Francisco, where she received her degree in interior design and architecture. She also credits her parents, in whose restaurants she gained the experience to support herself, as she worked her way up from intern to a lead design role, as well as a unique perspective that sets her eateries apart from the pack. “Really understanding what it feels like to be in them every day all day helps create a space that feels really good and comfortable,” she explains. Though she designed this Lake Tahoe property remotely, the home, whose lake-blue sofa and weathered wood ceiling and floors evoke the landscape, is warm and inviting, yet modern. “Beautiful spaces change the way people live and the way they interact,” she shares. We’ll have what she’s having.