Acclaimed interior designer Gary Wheeler is to join New York’s HDR—a multifaceted company providing engineering, architecture, environmental and construction services. Known for tactical approaches to workplace design, backed by research and strategic solutions, the former president of the American Society of Interior Designers will now act as the company’s global director in interior design and workplace strategy. Working with the architectural design and engineering groups, the practice hopes to expands its role with clients from the healthcare, science, education, corporate, and civic markets, according to HDR’s press release.
Wheeler will be leaving Wheelerkänik, a design practice he co-founded with fellow designer Grant Kanik in 2009, in London which specializes in workspace design. He jumpstarted his career in 1978 when he cofounded the eponymous firm Wheeler Group, which Perkins & Will later acquired in 1996, making him national director of interiors and subsequently managing partner of its Chicago office. In 2004, Wheeler joined Gensler’s London office as director of its European workplace design department. Past clients Wheeler has worked with include Apple, Time Warner, Bates Advertising, and J.P. Morgan.
Wheeler is a recipient of the International Interior Design Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
