New Zealand Commercial Design Trends Series NZ Commercial Design Trends Vol. 34/02C | Page 94

ways in which we can open bathrooms up.
And we create bathrooms that can open and
close, so they can be private if, say, you have a
twin room. But if you’re a single guest, whether for
business or for leisure, and you’re in a room with a
spectacular view, you want to be able to stand in
the shower and enjoy the view.
We can also take a lead from some of the smaller
properties in Europe, where they’re not creat-
ing enclosed wardrobes but have hanging areas.
People don’t mind as long as they’ve got the space.
At the luxury end of the scale, one of the things
we look for is multiple ways of moving around the
room. Everybody is individual in their habits, so in a
luxury room you can create multiple ways you can
walk from the dressing area to the bedroom to the
bathroom, and not have dead ends.
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The guest experience
Other fundamentals that are hugely important
to me as a hotel designer are things like lighting –
where you switch lights on and off, and where they
are positioned so, for example, reading lights don’t
glare down on your face.
These are things you don’t think about unless
you’ve stayed in a lot of hotels – and I spend
anything between a 150 and 200 nights a year in a
hotel room. They’re things that don’t contribute to
the overall ambience, but do contribute to the guest
experience, so people come away and feel that it
was just effortless staying in a particular room.
All the little things become hugely important to
the guest experience before you even start thinking
about what it’s going to look like.
I often say, when you’re searching for a hotel, how
Below:Bathrooms present
a major challenge for hotel
designers. Enclosing the
bathroom in a glass box allows
natural light into the back of the
room, while blinds give flexibility
for the bathroom to become a
more private space as needed.
Facing page:Hotel operators are
looking beyond traditional four
and five star hotels and creating
new lifestyle brands – such as
M Social and Indigo – to attract
global nomads and millennials.