Interior design


Left: Interior designers blend cruise ships with their surroundings, offering a uniquely immersive voyage.


Opposite: The Laperouse’s Blue Eye, a multi-sensorial underwater lounge.


Yet, with the global interior design industry set to grow by $24bn during 2021–25 and enjoying a compound annual growth rate of about 4% (according to a report by Technavio), the pendulum is shifting once more. Influenced by the best hotel design onshore, and spurred on by insights from designers themselves, cruise ships are once again beginning to resemble the floating palaces they started out as. More than that, designers are crafting elegant, subtle spaces, tugging guests closer to the sea and surf that surrounds them. Yet, with fire rules as strict as ever, much depends on the ability of designers to build natural experiences from the unnatural materials available. And despite the new enthusiasm for stone and wood, uncertainties remain about whether this unaffected mode can translate into a genuinely sustainable style, even as it evokes the planet in all its variety.


Sea views


If anyone can explain how cruise interior design has evolved over the past few decades, it is Sebastien Flamant. The Frenchman began his career in hotel design back in the 1990s, before partnering with cruise operator Ponant and shifting his attention to cruise ships. And as the designer says, he soon discovered that cruise design had become “quite similar” to that of hotels. “You have high-end luxury ships – or hotels – where the place itself is just as important as the destination.” Flamant, now owner at Flamant Interior Design in Paris, is not alone in thinking this. “I think the hotel business has made an impact on the cruise ship interiors,” notes Malvina Guarnieri, design director at Tilberg Design of Sweden, another maritime-focused design firm. This shift is easy to understand. With distinguished hotel designers like Adam Tihany and Christian Lacroix revolutionising their professions onshore,


World Cruise Industry Review / www.worldcruiseindustryreview.com


it was only a matter of time before these same principles learned to swim. Not that today’s floating hotels are simply facsimiles of the Augusta Victoria. Guarnieri, emphasises the modern connection between design and the “natural environment” beyond. Certainly, this is of a piece with the latest tenets of hotel design. From treehouse lodges in the Amazon to mud-brick hotels in the Omani desert, natural materials are increasingly being conscripted to give properties a sense of place. That is echoed, Guarnieri adds, by the drift towards offering guests, landlocked and seaborne alike, a calmer atmosphere – one that encourages them to relax and focus on life beyond their cabins.


Beyond the aesthetics, moreover, there is the feeling that change is also pushed by the type of person who takes cruises. Just as the decline of wealthy plutocrats presaged a move away from grand rococo staircases, so too has the revival of luxury cruising involved a more tasteful use of materials. If nothing else, this is reflected by the numbers. According to work by Access Cruise, an industry consultancy, the luxury cruise market is expected to double over the next nine years, by 2027, providing berths for nearly 1.1 million passengers. That is especially true, of course, for bespoke operators like Ponant, offering cultural highlights on bijou vessels. Hosting everything from arts tours in the Adriatic to trips past Mayan ruins, no wonder travellers on the French line want similar sophistication when they climb back on board.


By design Visit the Laperouse, a Ponant ship usually found stalking the wilds of northern Australia, and you will soon discover something remarkable. Descend below the waterline and you will see it – the walls like coral, the lighting murky and dark. This is the Blue Eye, a


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Ponant


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