Ko Makabe AIA

Refined Hospitality

Ko’s projects for leading hospitality brands are often cited among the world’s best hotels and demonstrate his ability to create buildings with personality that make guests feel at home. From arrival sequence to interiors and amenities, he deploys material language and building form to create a luxurious sense of place. At the Tokyo Garden Terrace, the façade’s subtle modulation and detailing give way to a rich interior finished in locally resonant materials, while Ko’s design for the Mandarin Oriental, Las Vegas, situates an ultra-luxe interior within a building envelope that is optimized to reduce solar heat gain.

Tokyo Garden Terrace

Tokyo, Japan

Mandarin Oriental, Las Vegas

Las Vegas, NV, USA

Qingdao Financial City

Qingdao, China

Diverse Programming, Balanced Expression

From the world’s tallest towers to large-scale transit-oriented developments, Ko’s buildings respond to their context with sensitive, restrained forms that often connect disparate programmatic elements into a cohesive design solution. These mixed-use environments, such as 105 Victoria Street, which incorporates multiple public amenities and community spaces into a London office building, are a signature of KPF’s work and central to meeting the changing needs of our cities.

105 Victoria Street

London, UK

One Fukuoka Building

Fukuoka, Japan

Three Sixty West

Mumbai, India

Industry Leadership

Active in the architectural community, Ko is a mentor to younger architects and helps organize the firm’s Designer Sessions, in which KPF architects gather informally to foster the cross-pollination of ideas. Ko was a recipient of the 2014 Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business Award.