Published: 06 July 2026
Roman Vnoukov’s career has taken shape in the more private rooms of architecture and design, including residences, boutiques, restaurants and branded interiors made for clients with a clear sense of what they want to project. His public record does not follow the usual architectural path of competitions, civic buildings and museum retrospectives. It belongs instead to a more client-led world, where design has to carry identity with discipline, from a Manhattan jewellery house to a branded residential tower in Dubai.
Born in Belarus, Vnoukov is the founder and principal of Design Studio Romani, his New York-based architecture and interior design practice, through which he has worked across private homes, restaurants, offices and boutiques. The available record places his early career in the post-Soviet sphere, including restoration work in a historic district of Minsk, before his professional life moved towards the United States and a wider international clientele.
Across the better-documented projects, Vnoukov appears less interested in decoration as an afterthought than in complete rooms, carefully worked through, with materials, lighting, display, circulation and detail considered together. His most visible professional relationship has been with Jacob Arabo and Jacob & Co., a collaboration that has moved from boutique interiors to branded residential architecture in Dubai.
From Craft to Interior Architecture
Before Roman Vnoukov’s career became attached to jewellery boutiques, private residences and branded interiors, there was a practical foundation in making. Vnoukov’s route into design appears to have begun close to the building site, with practical training in trades such as plumbing and stone masonry before his work moved more fully into architecture and interiors. That early contact with craft gives useful context to the later work. Vnoukov’s most visible projects are not interiors in the thin sense of decoration added to a completed shell. They are built from a closer understanding of how rooms are put together, how surfaces meet, how light falls, and how material can give a space its weight.
Stone, metal, glass, joinery and lighting are not treated as afterthoughts in Vnoukov’s work. They do much of the organising, giving the room its weight, pace and sense of order. At his best, there is a careful join between the built detail and the act of display, so the interior feels properly made rather than simply arranged.
That practical sensibility becomes clearer when seen against the projects that brought his work into public view, particularly the Jacob & Co. flagship in Manhattan, reopened after a major redesign in 2018.
Jacob & Co. and the Manhattan Flagship
On East 57th Street in Manhattan, Jacob & Co.’s flagship boutique and corporate headquarters gave Vnoukov a highly specific brief. The store had been closed for renovation from June 2017 before reopening in April 2018. Industry coverage places Jacob Arabo closely alongside Vnoukov on the project, with Design Studio Romani named as the architecture and design lead.
The commission is important because Jacob & Co. already had a strong visual identity before the redesign began. Its jewellery and watches are known for faceted stones, mechanical complexity and gem-set detail. Vnoukov’s task was not to create a polite luxury backdrop. It was to make a setting that could hold those objects with clarity, proportion and care.
The design drew from the brand’s own forms. Geometric patterns echoed the facets of jewellery and timepieces, while details linked to the Astronomia collection appeared in the ceiling, façade and central display areas. The watch references were visible in the geometry and detailing, but handled with enough restraint to keep the boutique from feeling like a literal reproduction of the timepiece.
Burj Binghatti Jacob & Co. Residences, Dubai
In Dubai, Vnoukov’s regional presence is most clearly seen at Burj Binghatti Jacob & Co. Residences in Business Bay. Developed by Binghatti in partnership with Jacob & Co., the tower takes his long working relationship with Jacob Arabo into a residential setting of far greater scale.
The project brings together developer, brand and designer, with Vnoukov responsible for the architectural and interior design under Arabo’s creative direction. It is an important distinction, because the tower belongs as much to Jacob & Co.’s world of jewellery and watchmaking as it does to Dubai’s branded residence market.
That connection is carried through the naming of the homes, from Emerald, Sapphire and Ruby villas to the Astronomia and Billionaire sky penthouses. The references are drawn from gemstones and Jacob & Co. collections, giving the project a more specific identity than the usual hotel-led branded residence.
There is also a clear link with the Manhattan flagship. In New York, Vnoukov worked with jewellery and watchmaking cues inside a boutique. In Dubai, those same ideas were applied to a high-rise residential address, with Business Bay giving the project its urban setting.
The wider Gulf connection remains tied to Jacob & Co.’s regional presence, including boutiques in Dubai and Riyadh. Still, Burj Binghatti Jacob & Co. Residences gives Vnoukov’s work in the region its most visible architectural form.
Caviar Bar, Resorts World Las Vegas
Caviar Bar at Resorts World Las Vegas, now known as AQUA, shows Vnoukov working at a more intimate hospitality scale. Opened in December 2021 as chef Shaun Hergatt’s first south-western venture, the restaurant and bar was designed by Roman Vnoukov. Its details were closely tied to the idea of caviar, from Belarus crystal-embellished doors to a stingray-clad bar and hand-blown crystal ceiling elements. The room did not rely on broad luxury signals. It took one small, specific subject and gave it texture, craft and a sense of occasion suited to Las Vegas dining.
Recognition and Wider Practice
Vnoukov’s work received a formal public setting in 2018, when Roman Vnoukov. The Retrospective: Architecture, Design, Photography was shown at the National Arts Club’s Gregg Gallery in New York. Presented with the Russian American Foundation as part of the 16th Annual Russian Heritage Month, the exhibition placed his architecture, interiors and photography within a broader cultural frame. The same year, a New York State Senate resolution named him among figures recognised for their contribution to New York and the United States. Alongside these acknowledgements, Design Studio Romani was described as having created almost 400 interiors across private and commercial spaces in the United States, Europe and the Arab Emirates, with references to private residences at The Plaza and Time Warner Building, work at The Setai in Miami, and luxury private villages in Europe, Russia and Ukraine.
Across these different settings, Vnoukov’s work often begins with an idea that already has a strong identity, then gives it physical form. A jewellery house becomes a finely detailed boutique. A dining concept is shaped into a room of crystal, texture and close detail. In Dubai, the world of Jacob & Co. watchmaking is carried into a residential address, where brand, material and architecture are brought into closer alignment. His work is at its most convincing when a client’s identity is carried into material, proportion and space with studied precision.
