The COVID-19 health emergency has accelerated the design process exponentially, pushing companies to respond to new, emerging needs with intelligent and functional strategies, whilst adopting innovative ways to reconnect with the world and make a difference. Moreover, the goal and great merit of the designers lies in the ability to grasp the trends and changes of the eras they live in, and convert them into objects and ideas.
The reopening of public places is the driving force behind the latest challenge designers face – to completely rethink common places in order to recreate new spaces, where all the design elements are in harmony with each other and in which the emotional component reflects the same sense of security and “feeling at home” sensation. All of this is done by involving the consumer in a very conscious way. Enough with the banal and unaesthetic plexiglass plates, we must uncover more client-friendly alternatives!
Whilst COVID-19 is bringing increasing attention towards health and wellness related issues which affect all sectors from food, retail and furnishings to travel and beauty, social attitudes towards sustainability and environmental factors is also still gaining momentum. New products and environments will be strongly influenced by the principles of the Circular Economy, based on concepts such as sharing, reusing, repairing and recycling existing materials and products, abandoning the bad habit of disposable use.
In public places consumers want to feel protected and “safe”, for this reason working environments will have to be organised according to some guidelines.
After months of lockdown, it’s important to return to the workplace feeling at ease and be encouraged to act responsibly. A six feet office has fixed workstations, semi-isolated or limited by graphics that visually delimit the space, making the safety distances perceived. The periods of ongoing isolation at home have questioned societies habits, encouraging them to seek more and more balance between private life and work life – and will be increasingly eager to work in an environment that reflects the home environment, in colours, furnishings and perfumes.
They must have a partially insulated entrance that acts as a filter with respect to the rest of the room where you can carefully sanitise your hands, deposit your clothes and wear disposable shoe covers. In this regard, Samsung has created AirDresser, a sanitising cabinet that eliminates bacteria, mites and viruses through steam jets.
The menu will be contactless and digital: with the Sooneat app, every customer from their smartphone can avoid the queue at the entrance, sit at the reserved table, consult the menu, photos of the dish, order and pay with a simple click.
Speaking of tables and chairs … how will they be organised? Large-sized restaurants will have the opportunity to rearrange the tables according to the safety distances provided, but what about small restaurants? To one of my clients I proposed a shaped table top to be screwed simply to the existing table structure, optimising the space compared to combining two square modules.
It will also be very important to reorganise the outdoor spaces. It will be one of the most important missions of restaurants and bars to guarantee an experience up to the past again.
The visit to the hairdresser and beautician will be much more psychological than one might expect, it will be a 360° wellness and beauty experience with customisable treatments and mainly green products, all bookable through an app. New restyling for waiting rooms where possible, with modular furnishing solutions that are able to maintain a minimum contact between customers but respecting the safety distance. The image represents a typical Martex furniture solution before and after Covid-19. The furnishings can be adapted according to needs and are covered with 100% antibacterial fabric.
This post is part of a series exploring the ways that the health emergency of Covid-19 has changed the way we conceive public and private spaces. Click here to read the previous post about private spaces.
About the Author
Elisabetta de Strobel is an internationally acclaimed Interior Designer and Art Director, originally from Rome. Her studio offers expert consultation services for interior design, product design, branding and strategic market analysis.
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This week’s instalment of the #SBIDinspire interior design series features a lakeside residence designed for an active couple approaching retirement. The client sought to create a home that celebrated the environmentally protected nature surrounding them, where they could enjoy aging in place while granting space for another generation to visit and entertain around lake life. Nature is brought indoors through the extensive glass and is emphasised by the mixed material palette including reclaimed wood, granite, and earth-toned walls. The home’s incorporation of sustainable and accessible design elements ensures that Arcadia House will be the heart of the family for generations to come.
SBID Awards Category: Residential Design Over £1 Million Sponsored by THG Paris
Practice: Visnick & Caulfield
Project: Arcadia House
Location: Massachusetts, United States
What was the client’s brief?
The client wanted a home that would act as a gathering place for family and close friends. They felt the home should celebrate its natural surroundings and experience nature indoors. Most importantly, the clients, an active couple, are nearing retirement and wanted their space to accommodate aging in place.
What inspired the interior design of the project?
The space is inspired by its immediate surroundings, by being immersed in nature, and by the site’s relationship to the water.
What was the toughest hurdle your team overcame during the project?
Working within the constraints of the environment proved challenging. The design and construction of the home contended with multiple setbacks surrounding the water, undeveloped land, and sloping topography throughout its uniquely shaped lot. The team overcame the environmental protections in place by using them as interest-driving constraints to derive the form and placement of the house.
What was your highlight of the project?
Seeing the client fully immersed in their home is immensely rewarding. The highlight of the project is seeing it become a setting that we as designers envisioned – one which brings together family and friends.
Why did you enter the SBID Awards?
We were inspired by the variety and quality of work at the SBID Awards, and hope to take part in the field with such international talent.
Questions answered by Cora Visnick, Architect at Visnick & Caulfield.
We hope you feel inspired by this week’s residential design! Let us know what inspired you #SBIDinspire
If you missed last week’s Project of the Week, featuring a 1960’s inspired hotel, click here to see more.
designer and president of Karim Rashid Inc.
Visionary and prolific, Karim is one of the most unique voices in design today. With more than 4000 designs in production, over 300 awards to his name, and client work in over 40 countries, Karim’s ability to transcend typology continues to make him a force among designers of his generation. His award-winning designs include democratic objects such as the ubiquitous Garbo waste can and Oh! Chair for Umbra, interiors for Morimoto restaurant, Philadelphia and Semiramis hotel, Athens, and exhibitions for Corian and Pepsi. Karim has collaborated with clients to create democratic design for Method and Dirt Devil, furniture for Artemide and Magis, brand identity for Citibank and Hyundai, high-tech products for LaCie and Samsung, and luxury goods for Veuve Clicquot and Swarovski, to name a few. Karim’s work is featured in 20 permanent collections and he exhibits art in galleries worldwide. Karim is a perennial winner of the Red Dot award, Chicago Athenaeum Good Design award, Interior Design Best of Year Award, and IDSA Industrial Design Excellence Award. Karim is a frequent guest lecturer at universities and conferences, globally disseminating the importance of design in everyday life.
Karim Rashid | NIENKAMPER, Heartbeat
What excites you the most about the use of artificial intelligence in product design?
I welcome the crossing of artificial and human intelligence. I love evolution, I’m looking forward to the day when we’re 50% synthetic and artificial, there’s something obsessive, and passionate about us becoming technological beings. I believe that technology is nature since we created it and we are nature and it is a masterplan that we will become seamlessly robotic. Right now, we have robotic technologies that can customize and differentiate production objects (creating one-off using robotic production methods), granting us personalization for anyone and everyone with great accessibility and low cost. Our high-tech objects are outside the body but in a short time they will be inside too. But seriously I will get an implant soon in my hand so that I can open up all my locks and doors in my life without keys.
Karim Rashid | RELAX DESIGN, Pebble Collection
Karim Rashid | RELAX DESIGN, Duo Collection
Karim Rashid | RELAX DESIGN, Meta-Collection
How does democratized design enhance people’s wellness?
Ever since I was a child, I wondered why there couldn’t be a more democratic design that everyone could enjoy. Manufacturers can make good business from design. I have had several agendas for 20 years. Firstly is to create democratic objects and to democratize design. Secondly is to disseminate design culture to a larger audience. Thirdly is to make design more human. My aesthetic is very human, and I think it translates well to anything from furniture to a building. Design does change our everyday lives, our commodity, and our behaviours.
Karim Rashid | TONELLI, Tropikal Mirror
How do you stay on top of the latest technologies, material inventions and innovative processes to know what is possible and how far your imagination can fly when you create innovative products?
My design practice is based on my accumulative experiences, years of projects, all the books I have read, all my travels, all the diverse factories I have visited, etc. Working with so many clients gives me insight into so many technologies, manufacturing capabilities, and materials. In this way I can cross pollinate ideas, materials, behaviours, aesthetics, and language from one typology to the other.
Karim Rashid | Boconcept, Chelsea Collection
What would be your dream project if you had complete freedom with budget, location, and time?
I would create hotels in every city I travel. I would like to design a chain of organic restaurants and coffee shops, low-income housing, art galleries, a museum and more humanitarian projects that can help save the earth. And I would build myself an organic home with no straight lines. I love Pierre Cardin’s Bubble House (Palais Bulles). I was inspired by his fashion and product design from very early on. The space is so soft, curved, organic and conceptual. Our surroundings should engage technology, visuals, textures, lots of colour, as well as meet all the needs that are intrinsic to living a simpler less cluttered but more sensual envelopment.
Karim is one of the prestigious experts invited to join the extraordinary jury for the SBID Product Design Awards, alongside other renowned professionals across industrial and interior design, brand development, architecture, educational research and forward-thinking enterprise.
Click here to view the full judging panel.
The SBID Product Design Awards 2020 is open for entries. Entries close Friday 14 August!
To find out more about entering, visit www.sbidproductdesignawards.com
founder and creative director, studio LOST
Constantina is the founder of studio LOST, a brand-new design practice focusing on high-end, hospitality, residential and boutique commercial projects in collaboration with the industry’s most respected global brands. Having led the European arm of international hospitality giant HBA for many years, Constantina has worked on award-winning hotel projects around the globe, also creating also an array of bespoke products and furniture lines for her clients along the way.
Camellia Hotel, Opatija, Croatia | Image credit: ©Sanja Bistricic
What challenges and changes to our value systems do you foresee as a result of the ‘great pause’?
I have been thinking our world was due an overhaul, though now is a very vulnerable time for many people. A positive aspect is that technology has enabled many of us to have a window open to the world that lets us keep on working. The technological revolution of the last decades had not significantly changed the typical office setting and routines until now. I think this ‘pause’ will make shifts in the workplace model happen faster. It has shown that an organisation doesn’t need employees physically in the office Monday to Friday for a certain set of hours all the time. From that point of view, I am certain we will all be working more flexibly going forward.
We have also come to appreciate all the basic daily rituals that we may have been too busy to enjoy before: like cooking at home, eating together, appreciating nature, or going for a walk.
SL01 Pendants for Dutch brand Frandsen | Project Image credit: Frandsen Project
Which innovative people or companies should the design industry be paying attention to?
There are many great initiatives happening, and mainly from smaller independent studios. I really admire the young French fashion designer, Marine Serre. She makes innovative ‘future wear’, ordering quantities of existing fabric like denim and regenerating it into new, upcycled creations. Her sourcing is 50% sustainable while creating pieces with a strong, fashion-forward identity.
I am a great believer that we should support the small local businesses around us. When our local restaurants and bars are able to open, it is our spending power that will enable them to keep trading. Every choice we make when spending is voting for the kind of world we want to have.
Amadria Park Hotel Capital, Zagreb | Image credit: ©Sanja Bistricic
While many companies have paused plans while in lockdown, many others have continued.
From our side for example, I pressed ahead to launch studio LOST and kept every commitment I had made previously, like commissioning a branding agency to work with us on the studio’s identity and other consultants to complete all the necessary early stages of work. We stuck to the plan and I am very grateful for the warm reception we have enjoyed from the industry since our launch.
If we want a world rich with different voices of designers, artisans, craftsmen, and independent businesses, it is our support that enables them to survive and flourish.
Piramal Aranya Residences Mumbai | Image credit: ©Hashim Badani
How will luxury design evolve in an era of more thoughtful consumption?
The pause has enabled us to question what luxury truly is. You could consider that luxury, during the lockdown, is the ability to move freely and enjoy a meal with friends! Whereas before that was something we took for granted.
The way forward will hopefully be more sustainable and environmentally friendly. I hope we will think about where things come from, their production, and how their disposal affects the environment.
I am interested in repurposing things and not making everything in a project from scratch: buying vintage, repurposing furniture, infusing an interiors scheme with antiques, and appreciating the craftsmanship of something created a hundred years ago but now finding a new use for it.
In terms of interior design, there will be a lot more upgrades happening in the next few months in the residential sector. Hotels will take a little longer to recover. As for goods, people hopefully will be buying less, but better. Staying in has definitely made me see we actually need a lot less than we realised.
What inspires you both professionally and personally?
More than anything, people and their expressions inspire me: my family; everyone I get to enjoy nice conversations with, exchange ideas and dream – writers; painters; fellow designers and thinkers; and so many more. It’s interesting to look at the world through their eyes and learn from our exchanges.
Constantina is one of the prestigious experts invited to join the extraordinary jury for the SBID Product Design Awards, alongside other renowned professionals across industrial and interior design, brand development, architecture, educational research and forward-thinking enterprise. Click here to view the full judging panel.
The SBID Product Design Awards 2020 is open for entries.
Entries close Friday 14 August!
founder and design director, David Chang Design Associates International
David Chang was honoured as SBID International Design Awards’ Master of Design in 2018. He is a registered professional member of NCIDQ, ASID, SBID and IIDA, and has more than 25 years of experience in hospitality and high-end residential interior design and management experiences in North America and Asia. In 1998, David Chang founded David Chang Design Associates International (DCDA) in Vancouver, Canada, and then expanded to China’s market in 2006, establishing firms in Guangzhou, Beijing and Taipei to provide exclusive upscale design services on landmark projects for local top developers. Deeply influenced by Chinese and Western cultures, David Chang emphasises attention to culture and history as sources of inspiration, thereby creating vitality and rich artistic essence for each project. Moreover, David Chang emphasises interior spaces’ comfort, functionality and the creation of soul in each design. Based on these philosophies, David Chang’s innovative works have won numerous design awards in the UK, Italy, Canada, and China.
F Bistronome Restaurant | DCDA
How has China begun to rebound from COVID-19? How is your studio coping, and are projects that went on hold coming back to life?
After nearly three months of diligent social distancing, mask wearing, hand washing, and staying at home, the daily number of new COVID-19 infection has come to an abrupt halt. All walks of life are up and running again. During the outbreak, our studio shut down entirely from late January ‘til late February. To minimise the economic damage caused by this pandemic, we reopened at the beginning of March with employees working three metres apart. Every team member wore masks at all times, and their temperatures were checked upon arrival, at lunch time, and before leaving work. Hand sanitiser was also provided three times per day during office hours. Staff were divided into two groups. In March, the first group worked Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, while the second group worked Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then in April the groups switched days. All projects were on hold during these three months. By the beginning of May, projects that has been placed on hold indefinitely began to resurrect in the catastrophic aftermath. Signs of intriguing new projects are also springing up in the market, but that being said, supply is still far more than demand.
Beijing Shimao Loong Palace Type B Villa Luxury Show Villa | DCDA
Who is one of today’s cultural influencers, and how will their perspective influence your future?
There are many cultural influencers across the globe, and one who inspires me the most is Bill Gates. He and his wife Melinda established a foundation whose mission is ensuring children and young people survive and thrive with better healthcare and education so they can rise out of poverty, empowering the poorest people – especially women and girls – to transform their futures, while saving lives by providing adequate medical care to those with greatest needs. In the field of luxury interior design, all our clients have enough wealth to afford our services and products. In other words, we only design for the rich and famous. Inspired by the mission of the Gates Foundation, I see several approaches we could take in our future designs. We can donate our design skills to not-for-profit organisations, charity groups, or foundations. We can also donate a portion of the annual revenue generated from our designs and services to these charity groups.
What’s the best way to design for sustainability?
No matter how sensibly and proficiently we design and build, it’s not possible to 100% eliminate negative environmental impacts. But we can surely minimize them to get as close as possible to zero. The best way to do this is incorporating renewable resources as much as we can during the design and build processes, and then planning how they can be easily recycled or composted once their usefulness has expired.
Poly Garden Sales Center | DCDA
What is the one of the most important lessons you’ve learned in your career?
All design-related professions belong to the field of applied arts, whether interior design, architecture, graphic design, or product design. Applied Arts are all the creative disciplines that apply design, science, and decoration to objects or spaces in order to make them aesthetically pleasing and functionally practical. This means we can’t just focus on how we feel and what we believe an object or space should be. The most important lesson I’ve learned in my career is that we must also try to feel and understand the perspectives, psychological needs, and functional demands of end-users.
David is one of the prestigious experts invited to join the extraordinary jury for the SBID Product Design Awards, alongside other renowned professionals across industrial and interior design, brand development, architecture, educational research and forward-thinking enterprise. Click here to view the full judging panel.
We can all agree that COVID-19 has caused drastic changes in every respect of day-to-day life and consequently, is pushing people towards making different assessments and decisions than they would have made before, with an entirely new perspective on what’s important. Perhaps it is the first time in modern history that we have really lived the concept of home; its spaces and its livability.
For many, the enforcement to #STAYATHOME has paved the way for an incredible kind of rediscovery that has brought attention back to our environments which, now more than before, represent the constant background of our lives.
The reorganisation of domestic spaces is one of the first needs that emerges from this, and will be a compromise between the needs, the type of activities performed and the square meters available, both for those who are renovating or buying a house, and for those who simply want to restyle their interior design to create more pleasant and comfortable home environments.
The popular open space entrances that overlook the living room or kitchen will be re-evaluated, preferring instead a partially isolated entrance that acts as a filter for the home. Hybrid solutions can also be adopted that can host, for example, a wardrobe, a shoe rack and a small bathroom, where hygiene-related actions can be performed.
The kitchen, even a small one, is the place of the “carefree meeting” where we cook, experiment and also try out playful activities with the little ones. Staying at home has forced – or perhaps enticed – us to spend more time back in the kitchen. A return to the origins but also a chance to spend more time together, setting aside home delivery services like Just Eat for some quality cooking time! We begin to focus more on making kitchen spaces more adaptive for cooking with the family and performing other activities (like homework!).
Smart working areas will be essential for future flexible working possibilities. From a minimal desk or a coffee table as a support surface on the side of the sofa to a deeper shelf inserted in an equipped wall, creating smarter working stations will become increasingly important. These spaces should be close to natural light, so as to feel less constrained and ‘boxed in’! Alternatively, using perimeter lighting systems that give the environment a calibrated and homogeneous light can help to simulate the solar one.
Introducing more plants into the home helps us feel less detached from the outside world. Bringing more of nature inside, together with relaxing fragrances to perfume the air, can improve our mood – as well as productivity!
A multi-functional bathroom can also double up as a space-saving fitness area. Integrating bathroom furnishings dedicated to personal care into a gym system could help keep you in shape at all hours of the day with compact fitness corners, suitable for any types of space.
Air purifying becomes a key concern. As our awareness of health and hygiene comes to the forefront, we look to keep the temperature of rooms controlled in order to promote psycho-physical well-being; evaluating the use of machines capable of transforming oxygen into ozone to fight bacteria, viruses, mites and moulds.
Finally, we cannot forget the outdoor environments too (even if it’s just a balcony or a small terrace) – outside areas have been seen as a real luxury throughout the quarantine period, providing that all important access to fresh air and open space. The value placed on outside areas and gardens, what they look like and how to maximise them, will become bigger considerations moving forward in a post-coronavirus world.
In short, it is necessary to design quality houses, with intelligent solutions that allow you to optimise spaces that are no longer a trivial copy and paste from design magazines but that, on the contrary, are able to reflect the personality and way of life by those who live there!
This post is part of a series exploring the ways that the health emergency of Covid-19 has changed the way we conceive public and private spaces. Click here to read the first post.
This week’s instalment of the #SBIDinspire interior design series features a 1960’s inspired Hotel Public Space. 2019 SBID Awards Finalist, Smallwood, had the challenge of ensuring a strong arrival moment for guests, given that the hotel entrance shares a lobby with the office tower and the residences. It was therefore important to give the guest a strong visual impact and to zone the arrival experience of a Waldorf Astoria that could easily compete against the multiple design languages of the adjacent office and residential lobby spaces.
SBID Awards Category: Hotel Public Space Sponsored by Viva Lagoon
Practice: Smallwood
Project: Waldorf Astoria Dubai International Financial Centre
Location: Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE)
The client’s brief called for a mid-modern approach, and unusually for Dubai, without any cultural references to the locale but a design that reflected the styling of the exterior architecture.
The client gave the styling of the American television series “Mad Men” as the design direction, so a strong New York sixties feel to the interior architecture and FF&E was used throughout.
To create a series of zoned spaces across Level 18 that prevented square meterage from being lost to circulation. With a total interior width of 25metres and a length of over 80m, Smallwood created ‘rooms within rooms’ so that the spaces interconnected, obviating the need for multiple circulation routes.
The opportunity to design an interior of a hotel in the Middle East with a cool aesthetic very different from the more typical hotel projects in the region.
We believe SBID is a highly prestigious design awards competition and it is a great way to showcase our new projects across the region to both operators and developers.
Questions answered by Joshua Rayner Roger Judd, Interior Design Director at Smallwood.
We hope you feel inspired by this week’s Hotel Design! Let us know what inspired you #SBIDinspire
If you missed last week’s Project of the Week, featuring a charming Chicago Hotel, click here to see more.
Continuing to support the profession of interior design, interior designers in practice and the businesses which underpin the industry, SBID shares the official government advice released for interior design; offering essential guidance on how the industry can begin to return to work safely amid COVID-19.
The document has been prepared by the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) with input from the Society of British and International Interior Design (SBID) and the devolved administrations in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, in consultation with Public Health England (PHE) and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
The advice provided is designed to help employers, employees and the self-employed in the UK understand how to work safely, keeping as many people as possible 2 metres apart from those they do not live with. We hope it gives the interior design industry freedom within a practical framework to think about what is needed to continue, or restart, operations during the COVID-19 pandemic. We understand how important it is to work safely and support your workers’ health and wellbeing during the pandemic, and hope this guidance will be useful for businesses as they develop new ways of working – or to help them prepare for a time when they are able to reopen.
To access the information on Coronavirus Business Support in the UK, click here.
To stay up to date with the latest Government updates on coronavirus, click here.
To hear the design industry’s thoughts on the impact of coronavirus, click here.
Staying six feet apart. This is the reference measure that will regulate our private life and social interactions in public spaces for quite some time, or perhaps permanently, after the pandemic.
The new regulations, which will become even more operational as commercial activities and entertainment places begin to be reopen, force us to totally rethink the configuration of public spaces and the measures implemented to maintain safe, hygienic environments which are mindful of allowing for a new lifestyle social distancing. Not only limited to public spaces, this same necessity will emerge also in the private sectors.
The good old ‘entrance’ area may be back in fashion – and with a similar function of the past in the public and in the private sector, it is likely to be used to store clothes and objects that must be sanitised upon entry into a building, or even allow space for a screening process to take place before being permitted access. Here, we will also have to wash our hands and wear what you need to preserve yourself from possible infections.
When considering our future environments, material selection will become a key consideration. Let’s first consider some data. The virus resists:
In light of this, it is easy to understand how even the mere choice of surfaces we will come into contact with will be crucial – not just the floors and walls!
Aside from the surfaces we touch, the new reality will drastically affect the entire environment that surrounds us; from furnishings to the division of spaces. Fundamental changes will then be applied in the furnishings and organisation of public spaces: layout of restaurant tables, clear directional signage to control traffic glow, access to sales counters and screening, distancing of hairdresser and beautician stations, etc. In these public spaces, we can also also see it becoming important to install forced ventilation systems for air purification.
The above image represents a group of workers in the Honda factory in Wuhan, China during their lunch break. A grid, drawn on the ground, highlights the safety distances imposed. Very cold and militarian isn’t it?
In this case, appropriate interior design intervention would certainly have had the ability to recreate a more pleasant environment full of positive spirit, especially after the feeling of solitude experienced during to the coronavirus quarantine.
It will not be only these strict hygiene measures adopted which will change the world we know today. The change in mentality will be more far-reaching. As awareness of our environmental impacts and concerns over climate change has heightened since the world came to a standstill, societal attitudes are changing on a global scale and our lifestyles may never be the same. As we begin to shift away from the patterns of wasteful consumption and throwaway culture – instead we look to the preservation of goods and the value in buying for longevity.
Hopefully, the art of conservation will pave the way for a better world, a better world will be one in which people will try to build a better future: better to have a small house with a small garden, than being stuck in an apartment! Who knows if, with these premises, urbanisation will reverse its trend!
Keeping you informed. For the latest daily updates on government and business relevant to the interior design industry during the coronavirus pandemic, click here to read more.
This week’s instalment of the #SBIDinspire interior design series features a hotel public space designed by Studio K Creative to feel like a beautiful, private estate. Hotel Zachary is inspired by Wrigley Field’s original architect, Zachary Taylor Davis. The charming floor plan includes a central bar, which creates an intuitive path that takes guests on a walk reminiscent of Davis’ own home by incorporating his family heirlooms, repurposing his architectural sketches into key art pieces and paying homage to his love story with details that honour his wife, Alma, and their children. Hotel Zachary is an authentic design that represents a piece of Chicago history.
Practice: Studio K Creative
Project: Hotel Zachary
Location: Illinois, United States
With a location across the street from Wrigley Field, the client envisioned a hotel inspired by the original architect of the ballpark, Zachary Taylor Davis. They approached Studio K with the desire to create a lobby that would act as a warm and inviting community space that felt authentic to Chicago’s history. The goal was to establish an approachable, versatile home base for visitors looking for a classic Chicago neighbourhood experience.
Hotel Zachary is inspired by Wrigley Field’s original architect, Zachary Taylor Davis.
The greatest design challenge was creating a space adaptable enough for guests to enjoy a cozy breakfast, important business lunch or hip happy hour all within the same central area. The lobby had to move seamlessly from day to night. To achieve this transition, we worked meticulously with lighting designers to get the levels correct for different hours and functions, effectively creating varying atmospheres depending on the time of day.
Since this was a legacy project, our team worked very closely with Zachary’s family to ensure the design was genuine and deeply personal. It was very touching working on a project that involved a person with historical significance.
We met with his family descendants, went through their photographs, his original sketches, his original blueprints and assorted artefacts that were passed down, including love letters between Zachary and his wife, Alma. All of these pieces were either incorporated into key art through the space or inspired various design choices. There was a lot of storytelling weaved through the process which made the outcome truly authentic.
Hotel Zachary means a great deal to the city of Chicago since it celebrates a piece of history and elevated the neighbourhood around it. We are very proud that our first completed public space in a hotel has received such an overwhelmingly positive reaction from locals and visitors alike, and wanted to bring it into an international market.
Questions answered by Karen Herold, Principal and Alicia Kelly, Senior Designer at Studio K Creative.
If you missed last week’s Project of the Week, featuring a luxurious Italian Villa, click here to see more.
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