After nearly a decade shaping some of hospitality’s most iconic spaces at Rockwell Group, Brooklyn-born designer Kamille Glenn has stepped into her own vision with the launch of her practice. Under the collective Dsgnrswrkshp, which she founded in 2021, her work is rooted in storytelling and representation, centering the culture, craft, and contributions of Black makers around the world through an empathetic, research-driven approach to design.
Her latest project—Marcus DC, spearheaded by Chef Marcus Samuelsson—marks her first major commission under her studio, uniting food, art, and history in a richly textured space that celebrates Washington, D.C.’s heritage while honoring Samuelsson’s global culinary narrative. Whitewall spoke with Glenn about bringing that story to life through color, material, and meaning.
Translating Plate and Identity
© Kamille Glenn, 2025. Photography by Esther Faciane. Courtesy of Kamille Glenn.
© Marcus D.C. Photography by Scott Schuman. Courtesy of Marcus Samuelsson Group.
WHITEWALL: Marcus DC is your first major project under your own practice. How did you take Marcus’s vision—rooted in D.C.’s cultural narrative—while also creating a globally resonant, artistic, inviting, and inspiring space?
KAMILLE GLENN: The fun thing about working with Marcus is that, in all of my career, I’ve never really had such a fine-tuned vision or idea from a conceptual perspective come from an owner-operator. He was very clear that he wanted this space to speak to D.C.—what we know D.C. to be in relation to what it was and what it’s becoming—and its culture. Similar to New York, it’s a bit of a melting pot, but there’s a really strong Black community within D.C. The NoMa area has also changed so much, so he wanted to celebrate what was, as well as who he is as a chef from a culinary perspective—being from Ethiopia, growing up in Sweden, and working with Black chefs to create an expansive palette and celebratory practice of cross-cultural cuisine. He said he wanted to celebrate D.C. and who he is as a chef—as well as Chef Anthony, who is from Maryland—and he wanted to celebrate how those worlds intertwine, from a Black perspective.
I was honored to have that directive because I’d never had the opportunity to hyper-focus on what that looks like from a design standpoint. He was very clear about wanting to do that in a way that could be truly appreciated and felt by everyone who steps into the room.
“He was very clear that he wanted this space to speak to D.C.,”
-Kamille Glenn
A Space for Lingering
© Marcus D.C. Photography by Scott Schuman. Courtesy of Marcus Samuelsson Group.
WW: You mentioned this wasn’t just a restaurant but a space for “gathering, nurturing, and restoring through the culinary art and design contributions of the African diaspora.” What elements did you add to the space that speak to that—from the mural and lighting pieces to textiles and colors?
KG: One thing I’m really excited about in working in my own practice is being able to take the time to do the research and explore. I did that at Rockwell as well, but it was often on my off hours. I’d burn the midnight oil—look at articles and reference points, watch YouTube videos, and really try to immerse myself in cultures I hadn’t wholeheartedly experienced. But it came a bit easier because I am Caribbean-American, so I had that perspective. One thing that was interesting was trying to figure out where our worlds collide from a cross-cultural standpoint within the African diaspora. I really wanted to celebrate what breaking bread communally means in reference to our culture.
In Caribbean culture, we’ll call it “liming”—spending time, playing games over food, having conversation. It was important to make the interior space feel like you could stay a while, because meals take time—from preparation to nourishing our body and soul. It’s really important for people to want to stay beyond their typical turnover time from a business and operational perspective. I was thinking about the ways we nurture and nourish our bodies—how we use food.
I thought about it from a culinary perspective, asking, “What spices do we all use?” Cinnamon and ginger are some of the spices that overlap across our culinary traditions. I thought about that and tried to translate it from a design standpoint, through color. One thing Marcus wanted to incorporate in his space was a raw bar and a dry-ager, so I was thinking about time from that perspective as well—how those two spaces mirror and marry each other.
From a design execution standpoint, Marcus had an Ethiopian tapestry—a textile that he wanted to upholster the banquettes with. I thought we could be a bit more creative in the way we celebrated that, so I worked with a designer from our organization named Marteen Allen of Studio Jeannot.
I brought the textile to her and asked if we could make it into a wall covering. She’s an incredible textile surface designer and had an existing pattern that shared a similar rhythm, but wasn’t too on the nose. We manipulated the colors, adjusted some opacities, and paralleled the richness and vibrancy of the textile. We decided to make the wall a moment of celebration. On the upper half of the restaurant, you see rhythmic striations and contrasting colors. When you look around, it feels like the walls are wrapped in textile, but it’s actually a wall covering printed on a woven material that feels like fabric. That was a really important and fun feature.
When Art Enters the Room
© Marcus D.C. Photography by Scott Schuman. Courtesy of Marcus Samuelsson Group.
WW: Another special piece is Derrick Adams’s artwork. Can you tell us more about that?
KG: This work was quite striking for me because it was unexpected compared to the stylization we know Derrick Adams’s work to have. When he shared this previous piece—which we altered in color to celebrate the vibrancy of our culture and its interweaving—he explained that it examined how individuals project identity through fragments of surface and structure. And because the space is alive with movement and interaction, he wanted to think about how it could feel fragmented.
“The space is alive with movement and interaction,”
-Kamille Glenn
WW: Did seeing Derrick Adams’s work inspire how you approached other spaces?
KG: Seeing Derrick’s work and the ways he used geometry was profound in understanding how he currently stylizes his pieces. Observing all these different movements kind of inspired the map. We went back and forth with Derrick’s team about the shapes, forms, and scale. I thought, “We have so much organic movement happening within this space—why not juxtapose that with something that feels more rigid, yet still marries the two surfaces together?” I was thinking about the ways we could honor and play with abstract perspectives geometrically.
From a color perspective, I shared our deck, which incorporated the general tones I was considering—the warmth of spices, the wall covering from the Ethiopian textile, and the hues found across our various cultures—to marry it all together.
