In the ROOM at ICFF: Designing for Experience with Tana Hovland of Rockwell Group

Recorded live at ICFF in New York City, Wesley Edmonds sits down with Tana Hovland of Rockwell Group to talk about what design really means today.

Tana shares how her work has shifted from skyscrapers to experience-driven spaces and why hospitality is about more than just how things look. From healthcare clinics that feel like home to designing spaces that engage all five senses, this conversation explores how thoughtful design can shape how people feel, move, and connect.

It’s a candid, insightful look at creating spaces people actually want to be in.

Key Insights

1. Designing the experience first allows hospitality principles to strengthen many typologies by shaping emotion and creating a narrative through space.
2. Human-centered materials, handicraft, and residential warmth can make healthcare environments feel safe, trustworthy, and calming.
3. A recognizable design identity comes from a consistent process—not a prescribed aesthetic—built around listening to clients and solving their specific challenges.
4. Strong client collaboration requires productive push and pull, thoughtful follow-up questions, and a shared understanding of the experience a space should create.
5. Holistic design should engage all five senses and move beyond creating isolated, visually driven “Instagram moments.”
6. Seeing people inhabit and enjoy a finished space gives design its meaning because spaces should possess a soul and ultimately serve people.
    

Learn more about Tana Hovland
Tana Hovland is a Director and Senior Associate at Rockwell Group, bringing more than 15 years of experience across hospitality, retail, residential, and marine design. Since joining the firm in 2016, she has helped shape acclaimed restaurants, residences, cruise ships, and healthcare spaces around the world. Connect with Tana on LinkedIn

Learn more about Wesley Edmonds
Wesley Edmonds is the Director of Workplace at OFS, where she combines her background in interior design with a passion for relationship-building, workplace strategy, and the future of work. After beginning her career as a commercial interior designer, Wesley transitioned into the furniture industry, bringing together design expertise and business development to help create more thoughtful, human-centered environments. As a contributor to Imagine a Place and host of In the ROOM, she is dedicated to fostering meaningful conversations that inspire designers, challenge industry thinking, and explore how the spaces we create shape the way people live and work. Connect with Wesley on LinkedIn.

Read More about Wesley in the Imagine a Place Journal

Learn more about In The ROOM. 
In the ROOM is a podcast series from Imagine a Place that brings listeners into candid, on-site conversations with the designers, strategists, and creative leaders shaping the future of work, culture, and human-centered spaces. Hosted by Wesley Edmonds, Director of Workplace at OFS, the series is recorded live inside ROOM’s modular, soundproof environments at leading industry events, offering a front-row seat to bold ideas, emerging trends, and the people redefining how spaces help us feel, connect, collaborate, and live. Follow Imagine a Place on LinkedIn.