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Vision to Vibe: Decoding the Spatial DNA of JJ Acuña
The career trajectory of JJ Acuña reads like a global odyssey—one that stretches from a quiet Texas suburb to the skylines of Hong Kong and, most recently, Manila. Across each locale, he honed an approach he calls “spatial DNA”. It’s a bespoke methodology that weaves client aspirations, cultural context, and intuitive materiality into environments that feel both precise and profoundly human. In this feature, we trace the formative moments of Acuña’s journey, hear his own candid reflections, and examine how he alchemizes spirit, story, and craft into every corner he shapes.
Before he ever opened his own studio, the designer spent years navigating the corporate world of architecture, designing large-scale projects for a global firm. But over time, the pace and priorities of that world no longer aligned with his own. He craved a more immediate, intimate form of design—one that would allow him to respond to real people, in real time, with real stories. This shift wasn’t sudden, but it was seismic. And it laid the groundwork for a more agile, more personal practice.
Bespoke Studio & the Birth of Spatial DNA
In 2015, the designer launched JJ Acuña / Bespoke Studio based out of Hong Kong. “We took the word ‘bespoke’ from the suiting world,” he explains. “Every suit is bespoke to your body type, your personality, your choices and materials.”
Just as you can identify a tailor through subtle design cues—the placement of a button, the stitching on a pocket—his studio reveals its fingerprint through material selections, spatial contrasts, and the layering of textures and finishes.
While he doesn’t subscribe to a single aesthetic or signature look, Acuña’s work is bound by a consistent and rigorous process. He and his team begin with deep client engagement, asking meaningful questions about their goals, whether personal or business-related. From there, they build what he refers to as a “kit of parts”—a carefully assembled palette of materials, tones, textures, and patterns. It also embeds a conceptual narrative that aligns with a client’s personal or business trajectory.
“Even with the same client,” he notes, “every location is asking for a different story.” This constant variation keeps his creative process alive. Bespoke plays with daylight and collaborates with artists on site-specific installations. They explore the use of plants in unconventional ways and experiment with tile mix ratios, patterns, and adjacencies.
The “B” Word
This desire to innovate isn’t just preference—it’s necessity. “I tell clients, ‘We’ve done this in a past project. For this one, let’s twist it, so it becomes a destination in its own right… Let’s not be basic,’” he says. “Nobody likes the ‘b’ word.”
That resistance to repetition presents a challenge when scaling the business. Unlike other firms that rely on a go-to roster of five or ten materials, JJ Acuña pushes for new ways of sourcing, fabricating, and finishing for every project. “Otherwise, I get bored,” he admits.
Reflecting on his early years as a painter, he sees a parallel between his teenage canvases and his interior design work today. Each project holds its own energy and visual rhythm. In this way, he sees architecture as a continuation of his artistic practice—each space a new canvas, each client a new story.
Behind Acuña’s spatial compositions lies a fascination with cinematic layering. He credits filmmakers like Wong Kar‑Wai and Wes Anderson in how choreographs light and form.
“I was so in love with the work of Wong Kar Wai, how he does cinematic streaks of light… how he uses bokeh,” he shares. “When I design spaces in 3D, I need to have layering. Whenever I look at spaces, I always think about objects in the foreground, middle ground, and background.”
Much like how a filmmaker frames a shot, layering is essential regarding the subject matter, materials, or how a space unfolds. This sensibility is especially evident in how his projects are photographed. He often directs photographers to capture images with a cinematic quality.
This isn’t just for effect. It reflects how he envisions space from the very beginning. Acuña instinctively considers how elements stack and interact visually. Floor plans and perspectives are more than technical drawings; they’re opportunities to choreograph a layered experience. This affinity carries over into his interiors, where unfolding narratives and visual rhythm are core to the experience.
Early Immersions
Of course, this nuanced and highly individualized approach to design didn’t appear overnight. It’s the result of years spent immersing himself in both theory and practice. Each chapter of his journey—whether academic critique, corporate discipline, or cultural immersion—layers his practice with a deep understanding of how spaces communicate, feel, and function. The emphasis he places on materiality, narrative, and intuition can be traced back to these formative experiences, creating a through-line from student to studio head.
In the 1980s, JJ Acuña’s family migrated from the Philippines to Fort Worth, Texas when he was young. It was, in many ways, a quiet and idyllic suburban place to grow up. But it was also rich in culture, thanks in large part to the city’s oil-driven wealth. His family lived near some of the most significant architectural landmarks in the state. This included the Kimbell Art Museum by Louis Kahn, the Modern Art Museum by Tadao Ando, and the Amon Carter Museum, designed by Philip Johnson. This early immersion that would shape his design sensibilities for years to come.
“I was not interested in football,” he admits. “But the Texans are very generous in terms of creating museums, purchasing art, having charitable donations and allowing Fort Worth residents to visit these places for free. So I would find myself once a month, on a weekend, just going to these museums.”
Armed with a small foldable camper seat, he would spend hours quietly sketching the works on display and observing the way people moved through the space. It was an open invitation to learn and immerse himself in beautiful art, culture, and architecture. These moments helped him develop an eye for design. And that early exposure to visual storytelling and spatial awareness eventually led him to pursue formal training in design. From the quiet galleries of Fort Worth, Acuña found himself in the demanding studios of Ithaca.
Rigorous Foundations: Cornell & Columbia
Acuña reflects on his time at Cornell as both formative and humbling. As a painter with a strong art background in high school, he excelled and felt confident in his creative abilities. “I thought I was the shit,” he relates ironically. And with that foundation, he entered the program with high expectations.
But Cornell challenged that confidence. It was there that he began to understand design as a formal language, one that demanded clarity, precision, and discipline. The curriculum emphasized form with an almost surgical specificity, pushing students to not only master technique but to continuously deconstruct and question their work.
“Cornell was an amazing school, but it really kicked my ass,” he admits. He absorbed the school’s insistence on a very specific way of drawing, modeling, and presenting ideas. While that discipline paid dividends later on, it also bred doubt. “I graduated [from] Cornell feeling like I’m not cut out to be an architect or interior designer. Or any designer of that sort. Because it’s always like critiquing, critiquing, critiquing.”
This was in stark contrast to when he landed at Columbia, where he discovered a freer, digitally driven sensibility. “Columbia was great because [it] is known as a technology school,” he recalls. “It was very anti‑formalism. So everything was curves and forms, and everything was Maya and 3D. So I had to unlearn everything in Columbia and learn new things regarding designing with technology.”
Between Cornell’s rigorous formal language and Columbia’s embrace of experimentation, Acuña forged an adaptive toolkit. He learned to calibrate his eye for detail while staying open to the unexpected possibilities that arise when pencil meets polygon.
Accelerated Practice
After 9/11 and the start of the war in Iraq, the mood in the U.S. felt uncertain and heavy. As Acuña recalls, it was a strange time—not just for the country, but for design practitioners, too. People were emotionally fragmented. No one really knew how or what to build, or even what role architecture and design were meant to play in such a moment.
While things felt stagnant in the West, something else was happening across the Pacific. China was building fast. With the 2008 Beijing Olympics on the horizon, the country was commissioning bold, visionary work. Herzog & de Meuron, Ai Weiwei, and Rem Koolhaas were creating landmark projects. For the young designer, that momentum was magnetic.
It made him feel like maybe it was time to let go of the U.S., even just for a while. Perhaps serendipitously, a few alumni from his school were hiring in Hong Kong. He applied, interviewed, and in 2005, he moved.
Corporate Hong Kong
Back then, Hong Kong wasn’t quite China—it was still in between. But that in-betweenness felt right. Known as a decompression point between East and West, he figured he’d stay for a year or two before moving on. But time moved quickly.
“I did 10 years of corporate architecture in Hong Kong,” the designer relates. “I started as an intern, and after 10 years, I was at director level.”
There, he designed towers and buildings in Shenzen, Guiyang, Foshan, and a shopping mall in Shenyang. Due to the speed of construction in China, he worked on projects that moved from concept to completion within a relatively short time. This pace became a formative part of his experience. The learning curve was steep but immediate. Everything he absorbed in university was quickly put to the test in the professional world. “It was like the Amazing Race of practicing architecture and design,” he muses.
Entrenched in the corporate world, JJ Acuña gained a comprehensive set of skills beyond design. He learned business development, marketing, specifications, project management, timelines, and goal setting. Most importantly, he discovered a deep passion for team leadership. After ten years in that sphere, he brought all of these skills into his own studio practice, shaping the way he now approaches projects and collaboration.
The Wanderlister
Toward the end of his corporate career, the pace of his work began to feel unusually slow. The process of constructing a building was inherently long and drawn out, and he found himself yearning for the immediacy and energy of the present moment. So he turned to the city itself.
After work, he wandered through Hong Kong’s art galleries, museums, shops, and restaurants—studying how people engaged with these dynamic spaces. He took countless photos, capturing moments that sparked ideas and questions.
At the time, when blogging was at its peak, Acuña translated his observations into essays and visual stories on The Wanderlister, a blog he described as equal parts documentation, storytelling, and therapy.
“That blog was an internal therapy for me to look around and see actually what’s happening [in] the city,” he explains. “Things in corporate were going really slow … I needed a balance of speed and creativity.”
It became a space where he could share his thoughts on design, culture, and the ever-changing urban energy of Hong Kong. The corporate world moved at a slow, deliberate pace—especially when it came to building. But the city around him pulsed with immediacy.
The Wanderlister gained a significant following, but when Acuña left the corporate world and began designing spaces himself, his platform reached its natural conclusions. He was no longer a passive observer; he was a participant. He was now living the life he once documented.
Then in 2021, in the midst of lockdown, he launched his podcast Aligned by Design. Confined at home, Acuña began exploring deeper questions around meaning, purpose, and spirituality. The podcast became a space for candid conversations—often with creatives and healers from diverse traditions. It was an outlet for the kinds of discussions he usually reserved for private dinners or close friends.
These dialogues informed a richer understanding of “intent” and “spirit”—elements he now seeks to embed in his work. The result feels less like decorated boxes and more like environments charged with subtle purpose.
The Return to Manila
During the pandemic, Hong Kong endured one of the world’s longest lockdowns, spanning nearly three years. The isolation pushed Acuña to reassess his priorities. He longed to reconnect with his mother and extended family back in Manila, and in 2022, he temporarily relocated to the Philippines. Despite managing his Hong Kong-based team remotely, he found himself at the center of a creative groundswell in Manila.
The city opened up, and the younger generation drove a palpable momentum. People embraced the chance to build again—launching restaurants, reimagining homes, and pursuing fresh perspectives.
Acuña was soon introduced to potential collaborators and clients across Manila. But could he bring the same design sensibility and quality of execution from Hong Kong to the Philippines? His initial response was measured. Would the materials be available? Was the craftsmanship comparable? And the short answer was yes.
While it might not have been possible to establish a studio in Manila five or ten years earlier with the same standards, the local design and construction industry had evolved. Contractors were more skilled, and local furniture and lighting fabricators were excelling. In his view, setting up a practice in the Philippines was a viable move.
Alchemizing Space
This year, JJ Acuña celebrates 20 years since his move to Hong Kong, and 10 years since the founding of Bespoke. Both milestones mark a continuous evolution in how he views and practices design. His journey spans cultures, disciplines, and scales—each project shaped by a deep sensitivity to context, storytelling, and the emotional resonance of space.
In his personal quest for meaning, he shapes his practice into one of constant exploration. His own compelling narrative—restless, curious, and open—leads him to question how design could be even more intuitive, emotional, and alive. He reflects on the spaces he’s helped bring to life, and the questions that keep driving him forward. Surrounding him now is a growing community of clients, collaborators, and creatives who, like him, are in constant pursuit of something deeper—design that resonates, connects, and endures.
“I would like to be remembered as somebody who finds a way to always alchemize and transform a space in a very crafted, careful, high quality, and intuitive approach to how we create a project,” Acuña asserts. “So I am a practitioner of design, but I would like to be remembered as one who does it in a very methodical and intuitive way.”
Embracing Paradox
What excites him most about the future of design is also what unsettles him: the acceleration of processes brought about by AI. With the integration of advanced technologies, the time between concept and execution will only continue to shrink. Furniture, interiors, and buildings can be imagined and fabricated at unprecedented speeds. Yet for Acuña, the designer becomes even more vital in this context.
“Our role is to find a way to keep it soulful,” he emphasizes. “To keep it intentional, to keep it crafted. It’s going to be a quick process from planning to completion because of artificial intelligence… [however] there is still an element of time that is very important for the unknown things to unfold, even within the universe of AI… So AI is coming, but don’t get dragged into it. Use your intuition, be intentional, and find a way to explore the possibilities of design with these new tools.”
This trajectory reveals a JJ Acuña who thrives on paradox: the structured and the spontaneous, the corporate and the artisanal, the visible form and its hidden spirit. His evolving spatial DNA offers a framework for 21st‑century practice—one that places human connection, cultural narrative, and uncompromising quality at its very core.
Photographer: Ed Simon
Hair and Make Up: Cats del Rosario
Sittings Editor: Geewel Fuster
Managing Editor: Katherine Lopez
Shoot Coordinator: Mae Talaid
Read more: JJ Acuña Designs Two New Coffeelin Spots
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