Ed Tuttle

Ed Tuttle (1945–2020) was an American architect and interior designer celebrated for his serene, minimalist approach to luxury design. He is best known for shaping the aesthetic of Aman hotels, beginning with Amanpuri in Phuket, Thailand, in 1988. The resort's pavilions, constructed around existing coconut trees, showcased Tuttle's commitment to preserving the natural environment while offering understated luxury. This approach became a hallmark of his work with Aman Resorts, leading to the design of other notable properties such as Amankila in Bali, Amanzoe in Greece, and Amanjiwo in Indonesia. Tuttle's ethos extended beyond architecture into furniture design. His designs reflect his signature blend of modernist sensibility and cultural reverence, offering a tangible extension of his architectural vision.

“Ed Tuttle was a true modernist. He understood that luxury was not about what you added – but what you left out.”

— Adrian Zecha
Founder of Aman Resorts

Amanzoe, Greece.

Architect of silence and space. A master of proportion. A pioneer of modern luxury.

Born in Seattle in 1945, Tuttle studied architecture and interior design across several institutions in the Pacific Northwest during the 1960s. His path began not in academia, but in practice – under Eleanor Forbes at the storied Gump’s department store in San Francisco, where he created bespoke interiors for prominent clients such as Donald Pritzker, president of Hyatt Hotels. There, he developed a taste for precision, proportion, and the quietly sumptuous. All hallmarks of his later work.

Amanpuri, located in Phuket, Thailand. Chairs designed by Ed Tuttle.

Amanzoe, located in Porto Heli, Greece. Featuring furniture designed by Ed Tuttle.

The birth of modern luxury hospitality

Modern luxury hospitality did not exist before Ed Tuttle and Adrian Zecha. Together, they redefined what a hotel could be. Not a place of spectacle, but a place of meaning. The two met in 1972, united by a radical belief for its time: luxury was not defined by ornament, scale, or excess, but by restraint, proportion, and atmosphere. Architecture would recede rather than dominate. Interiors would whisper rather than declare. A hotel, in their view, was not simply a place to lay one’s head, but a place to open one’s mind.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, following the founding of his firm Design Realization, Ed Tuttle built an international reputation designing private residences, cultural projects, and hotels across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Yet it was through his collaboration with Zecha in Thailand – first at The Sukhothai Bangkok, and decisively with Amanpuri in the late 1980s – that an entirely new hospitality model emerged.

Amanjiwo, Indonesia.

At a time when luxury often relied on pastiche or display, Tuttle proposed something radically different.

He embraced Asian design principles—balance, hierarchy, rhythm, and the power of negative space—not as stylistic references, but as philosophical foundations. His work honored tradition by understanding it, not by borrowing from it. This approach gave rise to an entirely new language of modern luxury—quiet, residential, and deeply human. One that did not impose itself on place, but emerged from it. The furniture designs that follow were conceived within this framework: objects born from architecture, hospitality, and lived experience.

Drawing by Ed Tuttle, 1986.

Ed Tuttle’s designs do not reference Asia—they belong to it.

Tuttle’s work at Amanpuri was shaped by a profound understanding of Asian art, architecture, and spatial philosophy, developed through years of living and working across the region. This knowledge was never applied superficially. Instead, it was filtered through Tuttle’s disciplined Western modernism—his devotion to proportion, restraint, and clarity. The result was neither imitation nor appropriation, but a synthesis: architecture and design that felt inevitable in its setting, deeply respectful of cultural context, and unmistakably modern.