The design journey

A superyacht is, for many, the ultimate expression of freedom. Whether cruising as an owner with family or friends, or as a charterer, a yacht opens up the horizons and offers an experience unlike anything else. In particular, unlike many other forms of travel, yachting is not just about the destination but about the journey you take to get there, the time you spend with those around you, and the things you do and see on the way.

The journey of design is no less intriguing. The ultimate destination may be the finished yacht, but getting there involves a harnessing of the imagination, combining flights of fancy and practical desires with decisions on details that range from overall theme or look right down to the finest details on the smallest elements of fixture and fitting. The job of translating an owner’s ideas into a finished, coherent and beautifully crafted physical space usually falls on the interior design team, but even when they have extracted and extrapolated the client’s wishes, their own journey is just beginning. “We always come from a sketch and hand drawings, which are very cool,” says Federico Benvenuti, Senior Interior Designer at Italian studio Pulina Exclusive Interiors. “Then comes CAD, and 3D renders which are pretty advanced and which we can use to present the project and get the owners’ attention and convince them of the results.” And then another phase of the journey begins. It’s a journey that doesn’t last days, weeks or even months but can, with the complexity of superyacht projects, span years.

Take the case of Rio, a 62-metre motor yacht built by the CRN shipyard in Italy – shown at the Monaco Yacht Show in 2022 for the first time and an interior designed and developed by Pulina. “Rio was a huge accomplishment for us,” beam the Pulina studio team. “The interior was completely customised according to the client’s wishes and requirements – including changes to our original brief because ownership of the yacht changed while the yacht was under construction – but for sure it’s been a very long journey because the project in total took three years.”

As it turns out, fittingly the parallels with travel and voyaging extend beyond just the design process itself for Rio. “It was a brand new idea of an exotic journey in terms of the feeling of the yacht’s interior,” says the studio, “because everything from the materials to the finishes to the custom design of the cabinets was intended to represent paradise islands inside the yacht. It means that the client could enjoy and stay in colourful living areas with playful furniture that has smooth and rounded edges – it represents a new kind of environment centred on a relaxed family lifestyle and also for children to enjoy life at sea.”

The concept for the yacht was to create the idea of white clouds floating on the sea, with a white and pale base palette punctuated by colourful accents and elements that infer fun and suggest those tropical paradises. It’s brought together on Rio through the use of strong impact elements in differing material selections and finishes, from 3D leather woven into curved lines to exotic wallpapers. Even the furniture, which draws from important Italian designs, is customised with colourful materials, precious stones, marble, and, as the studio describes it, selective decoration that reminds you of exotic travel. “For example,” they enthuse, “we have influences and pieces Brazil and South America – the family loves the movie Rio, which is where the yacht’s name came from, and they love the splashes of colour.”

What marks this project in particular is that in spite of the rich detail and clever design, the interior is not conceived as a showcase but rather as a space to be lived in and enjoyed. “From the very beginning, the owners said that they wanted a very playful space for their family and for their children to enjoy life and to spend time together,” say the team. “They didn’t want hyper luxury or glossiness and bling – they wanted smooth and soft with colour. I think in fact that’s partly what distinguishes this project,” they continue, “because it appears as a playful and happy design, although it actually has a lot of unique, rich details behind it.”

The Pulina studio’s own journey began a decade ago under founder Alessandro Pulina, who had previously worked as Head of the Interior Design Department at Italian yachtbuilders Azimut|Benetti. The team, which now numbers 15, has worked across a broad spectrum of projects, from residences to yacht brands like Ferretti Group, and from limo tenders to superyachts. Even now, with all that yachting heritage, the studio admits that their own journey in design experience and education continues. “We never stop learning from other people, or even just from what’s happening outside our industry and what’s in the news,” they say. “We don’t want just to be in our closed little space – we try to bring our design language and our passion but it’s also important to share with and understand and talk to other people. Teamwork is fundamental, and to get the best results we always say you need to keep sharing things, keep updating, keep studying, and keep learning. That’s what keeps us alive.”

Further, says the studio, while design should offer a journey of the senses it should also be rooted in reality. “Design cannot be like a dream hanging in the clouds. It should be realistic, and it should be feasible – and it should be made according to a budget, otherwise you end up with pointless architecture,” they assert. “We try to balance the specialist processes to make sure it is capable of being realised. But it’s also really important to create something unique, and that’s why being able to show Rio to the world makes us so proud, because she’s such an accomplishment after three long years of struggle. We came up with this very important project,” the team concludes. “Rio is another masterpiece from CRN, and she reflects not just our work on the project but also our own journey.”