You may not think of it this way when you enter the master bedroom of a private jet or the first class cabins of a commercial liner, but here’s the truth: you’re walking into an exquisitely designed tube. Many of the most elegant of those tubes have been meticulously designed by Jacques Pierrejean, one of the most renowned designers in the aircraft industry, and the man who unabashedly boils his work down to such a simple idea. The work of a designer is to get to the core of an idea, after all.

 Through four decades of designing aircraft interiors both commercial and private (and winning awards for them along the way), Pierrejean has honed his skills in an industry that is on one hand ludicrously lavish, and on the other hand, by necessity, ridiculously restrictive. Just try to include that Italian marble slab or clawfoot tub  you so love into your in-air bathroom design, and you’ll quickly find how limiting designing for aircraft can be.

 Pierrejean began his career with Dassault Aviation back in 1980, at a time when there were only about ten companies that existed in the aviation design industry. The market has since expanded to meet a rising demand, but he always managed to stay ahead of the pack. The innovations in his designs for Emirates Airlines’ and Singapore Airlines’ first-class cabins led him to receive several awards in an industry that can’t afford much change to its enclosed spaces and lightweight demands.

 The restrictiveness that exists in that industry, however, has provided Jacques with exactly the kind of experience and expertise that have prepared him for his next steps. They say you have to learn the rules before you break them; let’s just say that Jacques Pierrejean has been breaking them already for a long time. And the next industry he’s bringing turbulence to? Yachting.

 Although Pierrejean has spent much of his professional life working with aircraft, he’s no stranger to yachts. He’s been at the helm of projects such as Apollo Star and Phocea, and he has several more in the pipeline. Of course, he’s most well known for the crown jewel of YAS, a beautiful 141-meter superstar, known for its dolphin-inspired shape and its innovative re-design of a former navy frigate. And none of the notoriety received by his projects has been based on chance.

 One of the reasons YAS was so successful was because the experience gained through designing innumerable aircraft’s interiors gave Pierrejean a clear understanding of the space contained within yachts. No, yachts are not in the “tube” category, but there are plenty of similarities between the demands in both industries: a familiarity with lightweight materials, meticulous attention to detail, an understanding of moving spaces and forces put on the materials. And that’s not all: add to this Jacques’ masterful understanding of spall spaces, lighting equipment, and understanding of high-class aesthetic functionality, and it’s no wonder that YAS came out in a class of its own.

 But Pierrejean is hungering for more. The creativity stimulated by a yacht project can be intoxicating, he says, “Most of the time an aircraft is a tube, a train is a tube, a car has limited volume, but through the boat, you are totally free to extend as much as you like: more decks, a terrace, a balcony. It is much easier to work on a yacht creative-wise.”

 And there is more on the way. Jacques’ upcoming projects represent the excitement he has to continue to push the limits of what’s possible. Ghost is an exploration of light and reflection, whilst Lou + Lou is an attempt to bring new technology and a green philosophy to the yacht universe. But there’s one theme that runs through all his projects: the practice of breaking convention.

 So expect him to continue in the same vein. But there’s another reason for Jacques’ success throughout all these years, one guiding principle that has always been a part of his work: that of recycling and building on previous work. “We always try to take what we have made in one project and use it in another field. We would never be here if we hadn’t learned that lesson a long time ago.”