CARMEN FLUELLEN JR.
HBG Design
SAY IT LOUD - Tennessee Exhibitor
Tennessee Based Designer
Who or what inspires you professionally?
The way we design dictates personal connections with space, our surroundings, and our interactions. Being part of creating and shaping how people view their own communities inspires me to keep pushing the limits of my career even beyond design.
CARMEN FLUELLEN JR.
Bio:
As Architecture Professional at HBG Design for six years, Carmen Fluellen, Jr. has shaped some of the firm’s largest national and local hospitality, entertainment, and mixed-use projects. His passions combine design and community engagement to create experience and impact. He is active in the NOMA Memphis Chapter and regularly supports design reviews at his alma mater, the University of Memphis Department of Architecture, where he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Architecture.
How did you first learn about architecture and when did you decide that built environment profession was an area of interest for you?
A career day presentation in the fifth grade first opened my eyes to the field of architecture. In high school, my art teacher helped me do a deeper dive into the different types of design and the built environment.
What do you do?
I provide Planning and Architecture at nationally ranked Top 10 hospitality and entertainment design firm, HBG Design.
What excites you in the work you do? Who or what inspires you professionally?
As a naturally creative person, I love shaping and molding purposeful things no matter the medium or canvas. The process of pushing boundaries and solving issues in the built environment excites me the most in my design work.
Who or what inspires you professionally? What is your proudest professional accomplishment or achievement?
The way we design dictates personal connections with space, our surroundings, and our interactions. Being part of creating and shaping how people view their own communities inspires me to keep pushing the limits of my career even beyond design.
What is your proudest professional accomplishment or achievement?
Working on the BLP Film Studios project in my hometown neighborhood of Whitehaven in Memphis, and creating architecture for other noted Memphis projects that will boost Memphis economically by bringing national businesses and visitors to our city.
Featured Project Name:
Hyatt Centric Beale Street Hotel
Featured Project Location:
Memphis, TN
Featured Project Completion Date:
April 2021
Role in Featured Project:
Architecture
Featured Project Description:
Rising from the intersection of music history on Beale Street and Memphis industry on Front Street, the Hyatt Centric design is influenced by the unique juxtaposition of concepts and metal, brick, concrete, and glass materiality related to the notable site and its adjacent historic blacksmith shop. An infusion of industrial elements contrasted with color changing vertical neon lights helps provide a missing connection of activity and excitement from Beale Street to the Mississippi River.
Photography Credit:
Dero Sanford/ThinkDero Photography and Chris Villano Photography
Featured Project Name:
BLP Film Studios Master Plan
Featured Project Location:
Memphis, TN
Featured Project Completion Date:
N/A; In Design
Role in Featured Project:
Planning and Architecture
Featured Project Description:
Master planned by HBG Design, the proposed 85-acre, multi-building BLP Film Studios complex in the Whitehaven area of Memphis, Tennessee, is being developed by entrepreneur Jason Farmer and his team at BLP Film Studios, LLC, as the future home of the second largest African American-owned film studio in the U.S. The BLP Film Studios will feature sound stages for film and television, recording studios, a hotel and event center, and support spaces for production work and administration.
Photography Credit:
Renderings courtesy of BLP Film Studios, LLC, and HBG Design
Featured Project Name:
Four Winds Casino Resort
Featured Project Location:
South Bend, Indiana
Featured Project Completion Date:
March 2023
Role in Featured Project:
Architecture
Featured Project Description:
This large-scale expansion of the Four Winds Casino Resort gaming property offers approachable luxury within a new 23-story, 317-key, 83 suite hotel tower that includes an outdoor hospitality terrace with enclosed pool-side lounge/bar defined by three fireplace columns that extend into a skylight trellis above, as well as an elevated roof-top swimming pool, whirlpool and sundeck, all carved out within the hotel structure’s third floor.
