HOTEL LOBBIES ARE TRANSFORMING, AND SO IS THEIR WALL DESIGN
15 October, 2019
In this blog post, we’re looking at five key ways wall design is coming to the fore and contributing to the overall experience of a space. We’re looking specifically at hotel lobbies and how their very function is changing.
Read on for clever ways that hospitality designers are breaking down global trends into actionable design assets that are used in lobbies of hotels of all sizes.
Wall design is something hospitality designers are looking to when faced with mounting pressure to keep up with what guests really want: a unique, personalised travel experience.
CUSTOM WALL MURALS AREN'T JUST FOR STREET ART
Hotel lobbies have a great deal of work to do on behalf of the hotel staff. They have to set expectations, facilitate check-in desks, provide informal meeting spaces, be visually interesting as well as comfortable.
That’s a lot.
Making your hotel lobbies work harder in your service is what this post is all about.
In keeping with the need of guests for a personalised, culturally distinct experience of their stay, we suggest you think about murals as wall treatments for your lobby area.
Hear us out.
Working with local artists to create a personalized wall mural, giving your hotel lobby a definite, unique stamp that’s full of local flavour.
1. NO, IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE 90S GRAFFITI STYLE, OR EVEN AS BUSY AS THIS ONE FROM NIKE’S LONDON HQ (BUT IT CAN BE IF IT FITS YOUR AESTHETIC!)
2. TAKE INSPIRATION FROM SOFT, ORGANIC FORMS LIKE THIS ONE BY HOLLIE BOWDEN.
HARNESS THE POWER OF COLOUR BLOCKING TO LIVEN UP YOUR HOTEL LOBBY
Newsflash: accent walls are passé, but block colour accents are totally in. Work with pastels for a softer, more neutral space, or break out the metallics if you’re feeling bolder.
ADDING TEXTURE TO YOUR HOTEL LOBBY WALLS WITH ACOUSTIC FABRICS
Another wall treatment that will really boost the experience of your hotel lobby space comes through going 3D and working with fabrics that have high sound-absorbing properties, or even custom-made acoustic fabrics. Use them on your walls, your ceiling – anywhere you want to soak up noise and add full-on texture. ‘Swimming pool’ acoustics in hotel lobbies aren’t fun.
FIBREGUARD
GUIDING EXPERIENCES THROUGH INTERIOR DESIGN
Hotels are no longer just places where weary travellers can rest their heads. They’re evolving, for a number of different reasons, into whole experiences.
What kind of development is that? What do we mean by ‘experience’? How can experience be valuable or measured?
The experience economy is a marketing concept focused on positioning your product, no matter what it is, to enhance the lives or wellbeing of its consumer. This kind of marketing emphases enhancing and personalizing your hotel guests’ stay, with business depending more heavily on the ethereal nature of ‘experience’ than ever before.The great thing about experiences, though, is that designers have control over them in an interior space.
Interior architects and designers can orchestrate consumers’ responses and emotions – and thus, memory and brand loyalty – by elements of clever interior design, by the use of scent and technology, by lighting and negative space.This is where wall treatments, statement walls and feature design come to the fore.
INHABITAT
USING DELICATE INLAY RELIEF DESIGNS ON YOUR WALLS
Subtle inlay relief designs on your walls make a space remarkable and go a long way towards creating an understatedly sophisticated effect. No wonder this idea belongs entirely to the Parisian Chic concept of interior design! This kind of wall treatment works well for smaller reception spaces too, providing some volume and visual curiosity to a space. Keep relief inlays as elegantly minimalist as you’d like, or go all-out bold with a plaster relief mural (see below, in a striking botanic pattern…because nothing creates an atmosphere in an interior quicker than plants).
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