Kate Towill: Basic Projects (Charleston, SC)

Eating in a restaurant is more than just food -- in its simplest form, it is an experience eating food in an environment outside your home. For Kate Towill of Basic Projects in Charleston, SC, that experience is a blank slate for design, design that goes way beyond what color to paint the walls. She spent 6 years in the film industry as a set designer working on commercials, music videos and feature films. Her clients ranged from HBO to Wes Anderson, including being part of the art department for his film Moonrise Kingdom. When Kate and her husband Ben moved from NYC to Charleston in 2013, they founded Basic Projects, which works in both commercial and residential design and currently includes three Lowcountry restaurants: Basic Kitchen, Post House, and Sullivan’s Fish Camp. Each one of these restaurants is a full environment filled with a unique blend of elements -- from original art to lighting to a well-curated playlist -- that create an immersive place in which to experience the restaurant’s food. If you’re looking to elevate your own eating environment at home, this conversation on how to combine and curate design elements can provide some inspiration, or if not, at the very least, it will probably make you notice next time the lightbulbs don’t look right in that corner booth.