One senior designer at Rockwell Group is quickly emerging as one of the most influential new voices in hospitality interior design. After her acclaimed work at 44 LLC on the renovation of The Carlyle Hotel in New York (2023–2024), her name began circulating widely among developers and design leaders. That project, a careful reimagination of one of Manhattan’s most iconic Art Deco landmarks, blended contemporary furnishings and lighting with black lacquered paneling and delicate wallpaper illustrations of Central Park, paying subtle homage to Dorothy Draper, the hotel’s original designer and pioneer of the Modern Baroque style.
The project’s reception was strong enough to position its lead designer as a rising figure in the field. Rockwell Group, one of the world’s most influential hospitality design studios, soon took notice. In 2024, after reviewing her portfolio spanning work at 44 LLC, Mori Building, and tonychi, the firm invited her to join as a Senior Designer, placing her immediately on two of the most ambitious projects of her career: MGM Osaka in Japan and the W Hotel Las Vegas.
That designer is Sunmi Lee.
In this article, we examine her role at Rockwell Group and why her work marks a significant moment in contemporary hospitality design.
Designing Japan’s First Integrated Resort: MGM Osaka
As Lead Interior Designer for MGM Osaka, Japan’s first integrated resort and casino development, Sunmi Lee holds an unusual cultural and architectural responsibility. The project is historic in scale and significance. After years of debate, Japan legalized a limited number of integrated resorts, combining hotels, entertainment, convention spaces, and casinos, as part of a national strategy to boost tourism and regional economies.
When Lee inherited the project in 2024, the client entrusted her with re-envisioning major program areas, including the general casino floor, VIP lounges, and the exclusive Sky Casino, transforming the design while preserving cultural authenticity. Selected for her deep hospitality experience and bilingual fluency, she became a critical bridge between an international design team and Japanese cultural expectations.
Despite having no prior casino experience, she adapted quickly, demonstrating the kind of design intelligence that goes beyond typology and into narrative, sequencing, and atmosphere. As the public-facing design lead, she regularly presents to executive leadership and provides authorship at the highest level of the project.
Her unifying cultural narrative, expressed through Japanese motifs, materials, and architectural gestures, anchors the casino’s identity while elevating it into a refined international destination.
This narrative approach is what sets the project apart. Rather than importing a generic luxury language, Lee’s design strategy uses Japanese material sensibilities, spatial restraint, and symbolic gestures to create a casino environment that feels both international and deeply rooted in place. Scheduled for completion around 2030, MGM Osaka is expected to become a reference point for how large-scale hospitality projects can operate respectfully within strong cultural contexts.
Reimagining the W Hotel in Las Vegas
In 2025, Sunmi Lee began her next major assignment at Rockwell Group: the W Hotel Las Vegas, developed in collaboration with MGM Resorts International.
Her appointment was a natural progression after the success of The Carlyle and the scale of her responsibility in Japan. As Lead Interior Designer, Lee was entrusted with maintaining the W brand’s bold, fashion-forward identity while adapting it to Las Vegas’s hyper-specific cultural context.
She exercises full artistic control over the guestrooms, overseeing all interior design and FF&E documentation, and curating finishes and furnishings that reinterpret the W’s contemporary language for a new market. Leading the internal design team and presenting directly to client leadership, her role goes far beyond coordination.
She is the central creative force behind the project’s success.
The project exemplifies her ability to balance brand storytelling, operational requirements, and spatial experience, delivering an atmosphere that is both high-energy and architecturally coherent, rather than purely thematic.
A New Generation of Hospitality Design Leadership
Sunmi Lee is among the most dynamic emerging figures shaping hospitality interiors today. Her work demonstrates a rare combination of cultural intelligence, strategic clarity, and design authorship, qualities increasingly necessary in an era when hospitality projects are no longer just hotels, but complex social, economic, and cultural machines.
From the quiet, heritage-sensitive refinement of The Carlyle, to the national-scale symbolism of MGM Osaka, and the brand-driven intensity of the W Hotel Las Vegas, her trajectory suggests a designer equally comfortable working with history, spectacle, and contemporary luxury.
With each new project, she continues to expand what hospitality interior design can be: not merely as decoration or branding, but as architecture of experience. It will be worth watching closely where her vision leads next.
