A hospitality pinboard

I have ‘pinned‘ some of the bar, restaurant, cafe and hotel projects that caught my eye on the design and architecture blogs over the past couple of weeks.

– image via: Freshome, project: MAPSdesign

If you are a Pinterest user, click through and leave a comment to let me know your loves or hates.

Pinterest is a new social application that allows users to quickly save and share images that they like, and save them to pinboards. It’s gaining popularity amongst the design community, perhaps due to its similarity to the mood board concept that is used by so many designers.

Cycling cafe interiors

Cafes have been embedded in the culture and tradition of cyclists since the 1950s. They are used as a meeting point for the start of a group ride; for a ‘cafe stop’, half-way through a 50- or 100-mile club run; for essential refreshment for long-distance cycle tourists and as a finishing point of hard-training pros and leisure riders alike.

Look Mum No Hands! (below) in Clerkenwell in London features classic Italian racing bikes and cycling accessories decorating the interior. It is a space to be used and enjoyed, not too fussily designed, with a big screen showing bike racing and a workshop and mechanics for the customers’ bike repairs.

Boutique cycling brand Rapha has its “Cycle Club” cafes, which usually appear on a pop-up basis. This maintains a degree of exclusivity to the boutique brand, although a permanent cycle club is now a fixture in San Fransisco.

A combination of gallery, shop and cafe, the Cycle Club is a meeting place and hub for road riders. Unlike most ‘pop up’ stores, the Rapha Cycle Club will be more than just a retail space. With live screenings of road races and a full calendar of exhibitions and events, the Rapha Cycle Club will be a home for the sport and culture of road racing.

Ronde in Edinburgh’s Stockbridge mixes cafe and retail space. The shop focuses on displaying high-end bikes, exhibited almost as artworks, boutique clothing and accessory brands, and coffee and cakes. This cafe has made cycling culture one of its raisons d’être, with authors appearing for book signings and professional riders to promote their teams and races.

Reviewed by Brian Palmer of The Washing Machine Post blog.

Also of note is Patisserie Cyclisme, an online resource that aims to collate and review cycling cafés from around the UK and abroad.

My local cafe, Corrieri’s in Stirling, has not undergone a cycling-specific interior design but mixes Italian theme decor with some cycling jerseys and prints. It is used as a weekly meeting point and post-ride stop by various club riders and other cyclists, as well as the occasional celebrity.

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The Psychology of Colour in hospitality spaces

Karen Haller is one of the UK’s leading authorities in applied colour psychology, specialising in business branding and business interiors.

In this Q&A, she provides an overview of her work, and some tips on how colour, and the psychological effect it has on people, can affect a business and ultimately, sales or profits.

 

Firstly, a quick introduction to the psychology of colour – to what extent does the colour of a space affect the way we feel?

Colour has an effect on our mind, body and emotions. It affects our moods and can influence our behaviours and our physical and mental well-being. This will usually be happening on an unconscious level.

Why would this be important in hospitality environments such as hotels, restaurants or bars?

One of the main factors in deciding on where to go for a meal, a drink or somewhere to stay will be on how we want to feel, for example uplifted, relaxing, peace and quiet or playful.  Colour triggers emotional responses.

The last thing a business would want to be doing unconsciously is using colour and combinations of colour that result in giving their customers an experience that ends up driving them away.

A successful business will have a clearly defined brand personality. There will be colours, and more importantly tones of colours, along with a design style, that projects the brand personality and in turn will attract the right type of clientele. They will know exactly how they will feel and the level of service they will receive. You wouldn’t expect to walk into an elegant, refined, high end establishment such as The Ritz to see it designed using hip funky colours and wacky furniture with waiters on roller skates.

– the refined lobby of Claridge’s

I’m sure that has a large bearing on how a customer feels (and spends!) in a hospitality industry environment?

This could make or break them. Not being clear on who they are (the brand personality), on the level of service they offer and being able to clearly and consistently show this whether it be their interiors, standard of service, their website through to their marketing literature.

Confuse the customer as to what service is on offer, or trying to be everything to everyone, and  they’ll just stay away.

Is there a typical colour scheme for a restaurant, or does it vary according to what the space is trying to achieve?

This is down to the personality of the restaurant. For example, are they aimed at children, a traditional ‘gentleman’s club’, elegant fine dining or maybe minimalist, cutting edge. Each has a clear personality aimed at a different clientele and the colours and design would reflect this.

–the blue ceiling in this American diner would not be recommended to stimulate hungry customers

The colour you would least likely see in a restaurant or food establishment would be blue. Psychologically, blue is the colour of the mind and while you are effectively ‘in your head’, you are not thinking about your stomach – it’s suppressing your appetite. Whilst blue may be the world’s most popular colour, it’s one of the least appetising. Clearly not a good colour for food-related businesses.

On the other hand, red is the colour of excitement, energy – it stimulates. Orange also stimulates; the appetite, the digestive system and conversation.  You will have noticed the frequent use of red tablecloths in Chinese restaurants. Symbolically for the Chinese culture, it represents good luck and fortune.

I looked for images of red cafe interiors and found the vibrant, stimulating canteen above, designed by Verner Panton, for creative publisher Spiegel, in Hamburg. When Der Spiegel relocated to new offices, it was dismantled and preserved in a museum as a design and cultural icon. Interestingly though,  “Spiegel” editors and employees were rather reluctant to spend their lunch breaks at the time, and Karen agrees:

Wow – this is a great example of how even when using the right colour, if it is not used in the right proportion, can be so overwhelming. You would not be able to spend long in here if at all before you started to feel the negative effects of red and yellow – over stimulated and irritated at the very least. How would you even be able to see the colour of your food?

Bars can vary quite widely in the experience they offer- from cool and calm to vibrant and exciting.

Absolutely right. Again it’s down to the personality of the bar (the business brand). What atmosphere and mood does the owner want to create, how do they want their clientele to feel.  Colour playing a major role.

–a relaxed scheme to unwind in, Earshot cafe-bookstore, Singapore

Going beyond colour, do you get involved in recommending materials at all, such as bright polished chrome or dark woods for schemes?

A part of the work I do when creating a scheme for a business interior is to firstly establish its personality. From this I’m able to recommend the colours, lighting, furniture, fabrics, artwork, surface finishes, etc – in the right proportion and placement – that reflect the personality.  I fully believe in designing to reflect the brand personality, not make it an extension of mine.

Follow Karen on twitter @KarenHaller
facebook: Karen Haller Colour & Design
www.karenhaller.co.uk

Karen has also contributed a chapter to Colour design: Theories and applications, published by Woodhead.

Please note– photos are for illustrative purposes only and are not specific project examples of Karen’s work.

© Copyright Karen Haller / ESI.info 2012

Poltrona Frau celebrates 100 year anniversary with Benjamin Hubert design

Benjamin Hubert, class of 1984, British, the enfant prodige of international design, has created Juliet. The armchair that symbolises Poltrona Frau’s one hundred year anniversary, winner of the design contest held by the company to celebrate this important event between twelve talented designers from all over the world. With an invitation and a challenge: to project the brand values into the future, and to do so now. The idea is inspired by fashion and takes a particular detail, the puff sleeve, to give rise to a new concept of armchair, with a strong design.

Building Designer Mark Iscaro puts the case for sustainable office furnishings

Thanks to building designer Mark Iscaro from Firstangle in Victoria, Australia for his views on sourcing sustainable products for office use.

I’m sitting in my lounge-room, staring at my wonderful recycled brick feature wall, with my 7 year old couch sitting in front of it, and pondering how to freshen up my office (in my garage). I have carpet cut offs and old rugs down on the concrete acting as flooring – very ‘eco chic’ of me I know!

When setting up your office, be it for the first time or be it renewing old worn out furniture pieces, considering the eco credentials of the new furniture often plays second fiddle to price-driven decisions of most businesses. In saying that, there are options out there that are not only cost efficient but are also sustainably minded. You just need to know where to look in order to find the product.

Much like incorporating sustainable options within your home, incorporating them into your office can be rather daunting, but don’t despair, for I have some great ideas and suggestions on how and where to look to find those solutions within budget and with eco credentials in mind. Firstly we need to consider the options available to us. There are quite a few but we will focus on the four most popular sustainable choices.

Recycled (Second Hand/Reconditioned Furniture)
Renewed (Repaired/Rebuilt Furniture)
Up-cycled (New Furniture From Recycled Parts)
New (Eco Friendly Furniture)

Two contrasting approaches to hot desking

At a seminar at Ecobuild, I heard of two very different approaches to hot desking. This anecdote was part of a talk by Phyllida Mills, architect with Penoyre & Prasad LLP and a member of the SBID’s sustainability panel. The practice had successfully implemented an interior refurbishment with sustainability as a key part of the brief. Hot desking was just one of several aspects of the finished interior that allowed better use of the space, and accommodated the needs of several different types of users, ranging from communications team to more academic types who were accustomed to quiter, more studious workspace.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers’ ‘desk booking’ system was mentioned – I looked into this a bit more and it is based around a contactless ID card, and a booking system that operates like a hotel room booking system.

102 of these can be booked when required using the “hotelling”, or hot-desking, system.  For example, members of staff from another city who need to work in Zurich for a short time, identify themselves at the entrance using the LEGIC contactless smart card, and use the same card to book a desk at one of the three hotelling consoles in the foyer.  When they leave the building in the evening, it is an easy matter to release the desk again, using the LEGIC smart card.

This type of system can cause problems, if no resource is dedicated to administer the system, and if the users are not familiar with booking in and booking out. Forum posts on the Lean Enterprise Institute explore these problems, and explore ways of using lean principles to find the solution to a system that wasn’t working.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers in Zurich is a large office- 1064 workstations- and a computer based system might well be the best option. But for small teams, a ‘visually managed’ system is much easier and more efficient. In other words, placing a rubber duck on the desk when it is free.

Three baths using unusual materials

These baths are made from something a bit different – traditionally enameled ceramic is the material of choice, but this can chip easily, has limitations in the shapes it can be manufactured into, and does not hold heat as well as some other materials. We look at glass, concrete and composite baths.

Glass
The Naked bath concept is supplied in the UK by THJ Solutions. The acrylic bath is finished with a coloured glass top and a frame that can be customised with shelves, towel rails and panels. It has proven popular for both the residential and commercial sectors.

Guest post: hygiene in hotel bathroom design

Sanitaryware manufacturer Laufen provides insight into how new technology can help hotels with cleaning efficiency and whole-life costs.

The specification of sanitaryware and furniture for the hotel bathroom is an important element of the overall design of the space, not only in terms of its design and aesthetics to please the eye of the guest, but also on a practical level to ensure that it works in terms of housekeeping too.

By investing in a quality, trusted brand of sanitaryware hotels are not only investing in products that will meet the high expectations of their guests but also ensuring they are getting a durable product that will last the test of time.

One of the main considerations in hotel bathrooms is ease of cleaning, something that is provided by Laufen’s award-winning surface finish LCC (Laufen Clean Coat). This innovative finish seals the tiniest pores of the ceramic glaze, making it hygienic and extremely easy to clean.

Laufen also offers a simple ceramic shelf to co-ordinate with many of its sanitaryware ranges, including its news Palace and Living Square washbasins which have been designed specifically with the hotel bathroom in mind. The ceramic shelf sits below the basin, providing handy open storage for towels and toiletries while being easy to wipe clean.

Above- Laufen’s Living Square washbasin, which can be specified with the manufacturer’s hygienic Laufen Clean Coat.

Contract carpets: colour and design trends

Researching new carpet designs I have found that while linears remain strong, a new trend for patterns is emerging. Natural and neutral colours are still core, but manufacturers are also branching out into bolder, more daring colourways.

The popular linear trend prevails with these continuing to be strongly specified for contract and in particular, corporate interiors.

Designs such as Christy Carpets’ Spice Route, installed at this training centre in Oxford, remain in demand.

New linear designs are still being released, with Forbo’s tactile Arran range, part of the Tessera collection. It takes the linear concept in a new direction with its heavyweight, multi-height loop pile. Unashamedly irregular peaks and furrows give it a natural, almost ‘artisan’ appearance.

Milliken’s new Southern Analog modular carpet tiles (below) are another indication that linear is moving towards new concepts. Two designs are incorporated: the variegated linear elements of Panoramic that create a feeling of rhythm and progression, along with the mirage-like structure of Viewfinder, that creates effects such as sun flares and ripples on still water.

Product designers are looking to the next trend and more organic, patterned styles are also coming in. Vanessa Brady, President of the SBID, said recently in advance of the Surface Design show: “Colour is back, it should be muted so as to last the test of time, it should be toned down, to fit the sweeping change in society’s outlook – less ‘show’ more subtlety.”

Slip testing explained, by Karndean Designflooring

Karndean Designflooring is a leading supplier of commercial flooring, and here explains the slip testing standards that designers must bear in mind when specifying flooring in public areas – Pendulum testing and Ramp testing.

In 2009, seven million people were absent from work because of slips and trips and according to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), flooring is one of three controllable causes of these types of incidents.

Statistics like these not only emphasise the need for flooring solutions that are thoroughly slip tested and accredited, but they also highlight the importance of developing a method of slip testing that is accepted on a global scale.

Mike Cheetham, Global Technical Director for Karndean International explores the two most common methods of slip testing and explains how the UK flooring industry would benefit from one worldwide technique.

“There are two commonly accepted forms of slip testing. Karndean use both methods to ensure that that the slip accreditation that accompanies each luxury design product is simple to understand and can be easily compared both here in the UK as well as in Europe and the USA.”

Pendulum Testing
The pendulum test is the method of testing preferred by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for the assessment of floor slipperiness in dry and contaminated conditions.

The test uses a mechanical simulator to recreate the action of a person slipping. The imitation heel replicates a standard rubber shoe sole and when swung across the test surface, gives a measurable skid distance, showing how slippery the flooring is.

Accreditation is given according to how far the swinging ‘foot’ skids and each floor covering is awarded a Pendulum Test Value (PVT).

“PVT ratings range from zero to 36+ and equate to a high, moderate or low slip risk,” explains Mike. The following table shows how a PTV relates to the chance of slipping as a ratio to 1.

Risk, in 1:	PTV	Slip Potential
1,000,000	36+	Low
100,000	34	Moderate
10,000	29	Moderate
200	27	Moderate
20	24	High
2	19	High