From high-energy rooftop lounges and immersive restaurants to globally benchmarked hotels and culturally rooted retreats, Behzad Kharas approaches hospitality as a layered narrative, one that unfolds through space, material, and innovative design.
Behzad Kharas is a compelling role model in the design and build industry. His journey is defined by resilience, vision, and an unwavering commitment to excellence. From his early years, marked by instinctive creativity and a sharply honed eye for detail, to his leadership today as Chairman and Managing Director of The BNK Group, Behzad’s evolution has been shaped by perseverance, adaptability, and a deep understanding of how design can influence human experience.
Founded in 2005, The BNK Group has grown under Behzad’s leadership from a small, passionate studio into a dynamic, multidisciplinary design-and-build collective with over 100 professionals. Drawing on decades of combined experience across design specialisms, markets, and industries, the firm collaborates with clients in more than 80 countries each year. Its global portfolio—spanning over 500 projects across India, the Middle East, and Africa—reflects a consistent ability to deliver iconic spaces and hospitality experiences that begin before arrival and resonate long after departure. Across every project, elements are seamlessly integrated across touchpoints, moving beyond the creation of destinations to the crafting of enduring stories.
Hospitality design, in particular, demands a rare and exacting skill set—one that balances creativity with commercial acumen, narrative with functionality, and emotion with operational precision. It requires an in-depth understanding of guest behaviour, spatial sequencing, brand positioning, durability, and service efficiency, alongside the ability to orchestrate architecture, interiors, lighting, materiality, and technology into a cohesive whole.
Behzad Kharas brings these capabilities together with remarkable clarity. His leadership is defined by strong conceptual direction, meticulous planning, and a handson approach to execution, ensuring that design intent is never diluted from vision to delivery. Strengthening this design-led approach is a seasoned leadership team, with industry veterans Farhat Jamal and Peter Fenwick playing a pivotal role in embedding operational efficiency into every project—ensuring that BNK Designs delivers spaces that work seamlessly from day one, without compromise.
Equally adept at navigating complex stakeholder ecosystems, managing timelines and budgets, and aligning creative ambition with operational realities, Behzad ensures that each hospitality project is immersive yet practical, aspirational yet commercially viable. This holistic, skill-driven approach has positioned The BNK Group as a trusted name in hospitality design and build— an achievement reflected in its hospitality projects featured by Society Interiors & Design. Under Behzad’s stewardship, the firm continues to push the boundaries of contemporary hospitality, creating environments that are memorable, intuitive, and deeply connected to the people who experience them.
Society Interiors and Design curates a select hospitality projects from BNK Group’s diverse portfolio, highlighting the varied scales, typologies, and complex challenges expertly handled by the firm.
Brunch & Cake
Designed in collaboration with Ether & Sol, this Dubaibased café reinterprets the comforting nostalgia of a grandmother’s café through a contemporary, understated lens. Rooted in an earthy, neutral palette, the interiors are composed using nude textures, warm wood accents with biophilic intent, and in-situ terrazzo flooring—elements that collectively establish a calm, tactile backdrop. The design consciously places food at the forefront, allowing the ambience to remain restrained and supportive rather than performative, ensuring that the culinary experience takes precedence. White, beige, and brown form the foundation of the café’s visual language, creating a soft, harmonious canvas against which moments of detail gently emerge. A fiber glass olive tree introduces a quiet biophilic focal point, its green tones breaking the neutrality without disrupting the overall serenity. Curved wooden tables paired with rattan chairs lend a relaxed, almost coastal sensibility, evoking a sense of familiarity and timeless ease.
Subtle layers of colour are introduced through lamp shades and cushions, offsetting the neutral base with warmth and softness. The result is an environment that feels effortlessly assembled—carefully curated yet unforced—where each element appears to have found its place organically over time. Translating a wholesome food concept into an easy-going café setting, the project succeeds in creating a space that is inviting, unpretentious, and quietly memorable.
Marriott Fairfield
The new Fairfield by Marriott hotel presents a thoughtful interpretation of the brand’s established standards, seamlessly blended with a modern, forward-looking design sensibility. While rooted in Fairfield’s signature clarity and comfort, the interiors introduce a contemporary layer that feels both refined and welcoming—particularly suited to international conference travellers visiting BIAL, while also offering a fresh and engaging experience for the local Valencia audience.
Warmth and comfort form the core of the design narrative. A palette of warm neutrals is complemented by natural timber, stone surfaces, and organic glass lighting, creating an atmosphere that is sophisticated yet approachable. Subtle metallic accents appear across lighting elements, furniture, and décor, adding a modern edge without overwhelming the space. In the lobby and public areas, large-scale digital artwork and sculptural installations reinforce the hotel’s innovative character, lending visual interest and a sense of movement.
The conference and meeting spaces are designed with flexibility and performance in mind, incorporating advanced technology alongside carefully calibrated lighting and acoustics to support a range of professional functions. Guestrooms, by contrast, adopt a more restrained and tactile approach, where softly curved furniture profiles and contemporary detailing enhance comfort without visual excess.
NOX
Designed in collaboration with P49, the rooftop lounge bar at The Westin Mumbai is envisioned as a chic industrial setting that seamlessly transitions from a relaxed lounge by evening into a highenergy social destination after dark. The design language draws from an urbanindustrial aesthetic, layered thoughtfully within a plush hospitality framework.
Exposed brick surfaces, subway lighting, graffiti accents, and oxidised metal elements come together to create a raw yet refined atmosphere—edgy without being abrasive, and immersive without overwhelming the senses. This interplay of textures and materials establishes a distinct identity for the space, allowing it to function effortlessly across varying moods and time frames.
Beyond the rooftop bar, the collaboration extended to several key public areas of the hotel, including meeting rooms, the executive lounge, and banquet halls. Each space reflects a consistent design intent while responding to its specific functional requirements. The seamless transition from concept to execution across these varied typologies highlights the true strength of the Group— its ability to deliver cohesive, wellorchestrated hospitality environments that balance experience, functionality, and brand consistency.
Opa
Developed in association with Creative Clinic, this lounge bar and restaurant brings an internationally acclaimed Greek brand from Dubai into a vibrant new context. A destination frequented by celebrities and an elite clientele, the project involved refining and executing the design within a location layered with structural and logistical challenges. From adapting the concept to an ageing building to selecting materials robust enough to sustain an all-white palette, the process demanded both technical precision and creative restraint—marking a clear departure from conventional hospitality execution.
The space is further animated by live entertainment, activating the restaurant through performances that enrich the dining experience and echo the spirited social culture of Greece. Design elements such as cobbled stone pathways, white wooden flooring, textured paint finishes, hand-crafted Greek murals, and distinctive column features come together to create immersive, street-like environments within the restaurant. These curated streetscapes evoke the charm of traditional Greek settlements, successfully translating the essence of Greece into a contemporary hospitality setting that is both experiential and transportive.
Gateway Calicut
Rooted in the rich biophilic landscape of Kerala and Calicut, the design draws deeply from the region’s natural and cultural context. The concept carries this legacy forward through the introduction of biophilic design strategies—integrating natural plants, locally inspired materials, and organic patterns that foster a strong connection between the built environment and nature. Traditional architectural motifs and intricate wood carvings, integral to Kerala’s vernacular construction methods, are reinterpreted through a contemporary design lens, allowing heritage and modernity to coexist seamlessly.
The design narrative is further enriched by Calicut’s historic identity as a global spice trading hub. This legacy inspires a layered exploration of colour, texture, and sensory experience. Spices, seeds, and herbs—celebrated not only for their flavour but for their ability to stimulate the senses—inform the project’s chromatic palette. Set against a neutral canvas, richly curated hues derived from spices introduce warmth, depth, and refinement, subtly evoking the aroma and vitality associated with spice markets. The result is a lavish yet restrained spatial experience, where colour becomes an atmospheric element—infusing the hotel with energy, character, and a sense of place.
BNK Group continues to demonstrate that meaningful hospitality design lies in storytelling, adaptability, and meticulous attention to detail. By seamlessly integrating concept, materiality, technology, and execution, the firm delivers environments that are memorable yet functional, aspirational yet grounded. As showcased through this article, BNK Group’s approach to hospitality design is defined not by a singular style but by its ability to respond intelligently to diverse contexts and create spaces that resonate long after the experience has ended.
