5 Under 40 Winner Cory Gans

Portrait by Bruce Rogovin

Photograph by Joshua McHugh

Photograph by Cory Gans

Photograph by Joshua McHugh

Photograph by Cory Gans

Cory Gans’s career plans collided with reality in 2011 when he graduated with a master’s in architecture from Roger Williams University and ran smack into a recession. His search for work led to a job with the Boston-based interior design firm Planeta Design Group. “I didn’t totally realize what I was getting into,” he admits. But it didn’t take long for him to recognize he had discovered a new passion. “I fell in love with the interior side,” he says.

Gans, who has risen to become director at the company, says architecture and interior design have much in common. “If you understand design principles, it’s not that hard to make the transition,” he says. “An architecture education is a design education. It teaches you to be rigorous about the design process, and that applies whether you’re doing architecture or interiors.”

He eschews the notion of adopting a signature style as a designer. “If I’m doing my job right, it doesn’t matter what I want or like,” he says. “I’m trying to tailor the project to the client’s desire, to create a design thesis for each client.”

Still, whether he’s working on a 30,000- square-foot compound in the Berkshires, a Boston penthouse, or a nineteenth-century Shingle-style suburban home, his projects have certain common characteristics. “What I hope to achieve is that you walk into a space, and you think, ‘Wow, this feels great,’ although you don’t really know why because there’s not one single thing that jumps out,” he explains.

For Gans, a recession proved to be one of those proverbial blessings in disguise. His career may have gone in an unplanned direction, but he couldn’t be happier about where he landed.