Joseph Dirand doesn’t want to be backed into a corner. The French architect’s many projects are wide-ranging, from a former American embassy–turned-hotel in London; a private island in the Bahamas that is being built from the ground up; hull-to-interior makeovers of megayachts; and even designing guest cabins for the French company Zephalto, which offers low-carbon balloon voyages into the stratosphere. Dirand uses each project to adapt his designs to their specific location, and to tell a
