08.07.2014
As demand for hotel rooms rockets, new ways of thinking are needed to please both customer and planner.
The hotels sector is on the brink of an economic boom as a rise in tourism and business travel and the UK’s continued emergence from recession drive up room rates and trigger a new wave of construction.
Many would argue that architects have a responsibility to re-use buildings, in line with pressing sustainability requirements, and it takes a certain type of creativity to envision how existing room layouts, service and circulation routes can be adapted to create a functional, comfortable and economically sound hotel.
‘The good thing is hotels require only a limited variation between rooms, so they can work for almost any building type, from offices to public buildings, we even helped convert a disused listed prison (and former castle) in Oxford to create the Malmaison Hotel for the Trevor Osborne Property Group,’ says James Dilley, head of interior design at Jestico + Whiles.