10th June 2020 | IN HOTEL DESIGN | BY SBID Share Tweet Pinterest LinkedIn Project of the Week 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) What was the client’s brief? 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. What inspired the interior design of the project? 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. What was the toughest hurdle your team overcame during the project? 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. What was your highlight of the project? 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. Why did you enter the SBID Awards? 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.