Britta Cerneels, interior architect at Dôme Deco, design partner to The Lobby, a central networking space at The Independent Hotel Show 2019, discusses plans for the space and hotel design trends.
Could you tell us more about your plans for The Lobby at the Independent Hotel Show?
Dôme Deco has designed this area of The Independent Hotel Show to allow guests a space in which to network, get refreshments and host formal or informal meetings.
We create interior collections with a cosmopolitan identity and our desire is to gather inspiration in search of the beauty that goes beyond the average, so by using a unique combination of furniture items, textures and styling, we’ve designed The Lobby in a way to create a warm, yet sophisticated interior that can be used for all types of meetings.
The Lobby at The Independent Hotel Show is an excellent showcase of the hotel lounge by featuring a range of seating areas to accommodate different needs. We’ve also combined the colours golden yellow, terracotta and brown to produce a calm working space. It inspires both relaxation and concentration.
What hotel lobby design trends should hoteliers be paying attention to?
With the whole world going digital we see a strong need for tactility. With this we mean that end-users are getting more and more accustomed to getting endless impulses from the digital world, that we see this needing to be balanced out by a warm and welcoming physical environment where a tactile experience is high on the agenda.
What do you predict to be big in hotel design in the near future?
With the work landscape becoming more digital and more mobile and the nature of jobs and work locations becoming more flexible, there is growing demand for hotels to become hubs for digital nomads. More people are mixing work with leisure and hotels will be accommodating this. I think we’ll see conference rooms disappearing from hotel set-ups and being replaced by co-working spaces and/or a variety of services offices.
How can design be used to make an independent hotel more successful?
An interior is the perfect tool to communicate and support an identity. The interior of a hotel tells the story the hotel wants to sell. And more importantly, like with any good story, it needs to be a coherent one. This is what we strive for with our total interior concept: every single item from our collection can be considered a part of that story.
Where do you find inspiration for your designs?
We gather our inspiration by traveling all over the world, experiencing what the hotel guests experience and translating this into a cosmopolitan lifestyle collection with a sense of affordable luxury that satisfies their needs.
Dôme Deco will be at The Independent Hotel Show, which takes place at Olympia, London on 15-16th October. To register to attend visit https://www.independenthotelshow.co.uk/
