“Each day is new and everything is an experience.”
– Kurt Slanaker
Kurt Slanaker leads Design Hotels’ brand portfolio and partnership initiatives across the Americas. His career has been built at the intersection of design, hospitality, and community — collaborating with Aesop, Maison Kitsuné, Salt & Stone, and a network of creative entrepreneurs who share his belief that the best things happen when people get in a room together.
Before joining Design Hotels, he navigated growth initiatives and brand strategy across industries, partnering with both legacy names and rising voices. He’s the kind of person who thinks deeply about connection — not just between brands, but between people, places, and the ideas that pass between them.
Based in Los Angeles, Kurt moves through the east side of the city with his wife and six-year-old son, chasing the best dim sum, gallery openings, and buildings waiting for a second life. He’s the kind of person Sotiyo was built with in mind: someone for whom movement isn’t a means to an end — it’s how life gets made.
On rhythm, the senses, and why every day begins before dawn
From Glassell Park to Mexico City to the Japanese coast, Kurt Slanaker moves through the world with a quality rare in the design industry: genuine presence. He talks about intentional breathing and late-night gallery concepts, about the smell of ocean air that never leaves you, and about a Thom Browne sweater he refuses to leave home without. This is a conversation about what it means to move through life, not past it.
When we reached Kurt, he was at his desk in Glassell Park, the east-side LA neighborhood he and his family have called home for the past year. A Simi Dubah sculpture sat in view. Last week he was in Mexico City; next week, Washington D.C. The desk was a pause between worlds.
“Sitting in my office looking at my sculpture,” he says, “is a fleeting moment.” For Kurt, it seems, most moments are. But fleeting doesn’t mean unnoticed.
Rhythm Before the Sun Comes Up
Movement, for Kurt, isn’t something that starts when he walks out the door. It begins at 4:45 in the morning — with thought, and breath.
“Rhythm starts and ends each day with two specific practices: mental gymnastics and intentional breathing,” he tells us. “I can’t escape thinking about seemingly critical things at 4:45am every morning, or wondering into space thinking about a gallery concept or a far-flung hotel at 11:00pm each night.”
And breath: “The act of breathing makes each day into a rhythmic dance of flow, grace and challenge.” It’s a practice, not a performance. A private choreography before the city wakes.
Clouds, Salt Air, and Old Friends
Asked about the in-between moments that tend to linger, Kurt doesn’t reach for grand destinations or signature hotel lobbies. He reaches for something more elemental.
“Clouds, especially when seeing them from vantage points like flying over the Swiss Alps or a high-rise in NYC. Anything that smells or tastes like salty ocean air is a feeling that lasts with me forever.” And then there’s the human element: “The unequivocal feeling of meeting someone new or seeing an old friend whose energy is there to inspire and heal.”
Between Cities and Open Air: The Balance He Chases
Kurt grew up along the California coast. Twelve years in a city haven’t changed his need for open sky. The urban pull and the coastal quiet aren’t opposites for him — they’re the two forces he calibrates between, constantly.
“There’s nothing like spending a whirlwind 48 hours in a major city moving from place to place, person to person, hour to hour. But then removing oneself from commotion and spending time in places like Lake Arrowhead or Tayrona in Colombia ebbs out the hectic pace of urban living.”
“The streets bring energy, while the open air brings a serenity to life. The balance is everything I chase.” That tension — held rather than resolved — is where Kurt seems most alive.
Transitions That Shaped Him: It’s All Sensory
Ask Kurt about the transitions that have defined him and he offers not a timeline, but a list of sensations. It’s one of the most honest answers we’ve received to this question.
“Smelling coffee from Kona, eating barbacoa tacos, experiencing a thunderstorm in Playa Zicatela, viewing Manuel de Arellano’s ‘Virgin de Guadalupe’ (1691), fracturing my back at G-Land, seeing my son eating gelato in Puglia, landing in Tokyo at 5:35am, staying out until 5:35am in Berlin, meeting my wife, holding my son for the first time, losing my parents, drinking a carajillo anywhere in Mexico.”
Then simply: “It’s all sensory.” Life, as Kurt lives it, is not recorded in bullet points. It’s stored in the body.
What He Carries: Thom Browne, Felt-Tip Pens, and Sparkling Water
Kurt travels with a short but considered list. There’s a self-aware admission of “pretentiousness” before he says it: he doesn’t go anywhere without something from Thom Browne. “I’m a sucker for their leatherwork and sweaters but the obsession knows no bounds.”
There are the Paper Mate Flair felt-tip pens — or the ones “gifted” from hotels. And then, with the kind of dry humor that makes you smile: “Any sparkling water. What would I do without sparkling water?”
What this list reveals is a person who carries objects with intention. Nothing without meaning.
Design and Weight: What Good Objects Feel Like
When it comes to well-designed objects, Kurt’s answer is unexpectedly physical.
“Lately I’ve been falling in love with objects that have a certain weight to them. A hotel room door, a sculpture, sunglasses, or even the right weight on my tennis racquet. Having a nice weight to an item means it’s well designed to me — well, at least for now.”
That phrase — “at least for now” — feels important. Kurt isn’t handing down judgments. He’s observing, staying curious, holding his opinions loosely.
Comfort While Moving: Friends, a Good Sweater, a Polaroid
For Kurt, comfort it’s anchored in the human.
“Being with friends, or knowing there will be some form of a friendly face along the journey or at the destination.” Beyond that: a good sweater and a book that holds a polaroid of his wife and son.
There’s something quietly profound about that. Not a curated kit. Not a packing list optimized for weight distribution. Just a photo tucked into a book — a reminder of where you belong, even as you move.
The Senses in Transit: Becoming More Alive
On which senses come alive in motion, Kurt is thoughtful. He has something harder to name than sight or smell.
“It’s hard to describe unless you have one, but to me my ‘kid’ senses become much more present when traveling. Yes, things taste better. Yes, I love endlessly looking out a window. But there’s something more to it when you can almost feel your senses coming alive and changing who you are.”
He describes how spending time in the Dolomites last year changed his sense of height entirely. How visiting Colombia changed his understanding of the beauty in the Spanish language. Travel, for Kurt, isn’t exposure — it’s transformation.
Never on Autopilot
How does he avoid going through the motions? The answer is almost disarming in its simplicity.
“This is easy because I’ve never been on autopilot. To fall into a trap means you have to believe in it. For me, each day is new and everything is an experience.”
No method. Just a fundamental refusal to let familiarity dull the day.
Next: Washington, Then Japan, Then Shimoda
Next week is Washington D.C., a city that “brings back vivid memories from when I lived there.” He acknowledges the weight of the current political moment: “My only expectation is to be welcomed into the city.”
And beyond that, Japan this April. Shimoda, specifically — a town on the Izu Peninsula where he and his family will be house scouting. “The ocean is delightful and your soul finds peace.”
The Weight of Moving Well
Talking with Kurt, something becomes clear: movement for him has never been about speed or distance. It’s about presence. About carrying the right things, in the right way, with the right weight — and staying open enough to let each place change you.
That’s close to what we’re trying to build at Sotiyo. Products designed not just to move with you, but to make room for the moments that matter — the cloud above the Alps, the salty air, the polaroid in the book. The in-between that turns out to be everything.
When Kurt says each day is new, he means it. And the objects around him — the sculpture, the sweater, the sparkling water — are less about possession and more about permission. Permission to be fully here, for whatever this next moment holds.
If this conversation sparked something, you might also enjoy our piece on how urban creatives navigate the rhythm of their daily commute with the interview to Frank Bach. Or, if you’d like more conversations like this one delivered quietly to your inbox, you’re welcome to join our community below.
