RECEPTION
Welcome I have found myself staying in some small hotel rooms
recently. Not that I am complaining. Bigger is not always better when it comes to guestroom design.
COVER STORY: Converted from a former bank in Amsterdam’s Museum Quarter, Conservatorium is the latest venture from Alrov Luxury Hotels. Piero Lissoni, who also worked with the group on the launch of Mamilla in Jerusalem, has created a succession of luminous spaces around a soaring glass atrium.
It’s a perk of this job that I get to stay in some very luxurious hotels, and I’m enormously appreciative of the generosity shown to me by many of the properties we review in putting me in their most spacious rooms, or upgrading me to a palatial suite. But sometimes, all you want is a place to put your bags down and rest your head. I have stayed in suites where it has taken twenty minutes to walk around turning the lights off – assuming of course you can find the switch in the first place (a cliché perhaps but easy to locate and simple to operate lighting controls are a basic guestroom function that still seems to elude many designers). Often I’d be happy to trade a a large room for a good location, since I do not particularly enjoy sitting in hotel rooms, no matter how beautiful their design may be. Recent overnight stays in the likes of Hi Matic in Paris, the Michelberger in Berlin and Z Hotel in London have all been in rooms that might normally be described as compact (‘cosy’ is the Michelberger’s euphemism) but I have enjoyed these hotels just as much as, and in some cases more than, apartment-sized sleeping quarters in five-star grande dames. A busy travel schedule coupled with a reluctance to spend too much time away from home mean I often don’t check in until late and have to leave early the next day. Under these circumstances, a smaller room can be a blessing. Less space to unpack all of one’s belongings, fewer places to lose things in the rush to pack and leave. Space constraints can result in more interesting design solutions as well. All too often, designers seem to think of a hotel guestroom in two dimensions – a footprint into which certain items must be fitted in a neat arrangement with enough space between the different elements, like pieces on a board. But it is noticeable in hotels such as those I have mentioned that the designers have engaged with the space in three dimensions, looking not just at how bits of furniture can be sat on the floor, but how componentss can be stacked up, arranged vertically, condensed into a smaller area, slotted together more effectively...or indeed, whether they are necessary at all.
Matt Turner - Editor
Front Desk
Editor Matt Turner
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