NEWH - September 2009 - (Page 12)

design101 hotel guestroom Beantown Test A challenging guestroom renovation for RDH & Associates Photography by Robert Miller Challenge Renovate everything in the 551 guestrooms and suites of the Omni Parker House in Boston except for the wallcovering in the rooms, the headboards, and some of the desks and mirrors, plus address the lack of storage space in the bathrooms, all while keeping the traditional feel of the historic hotel and appealing to the hotel’s many business travelers. “We were told that there were approximately 25 types of guestrooms (that grew to over 100 once we did the walk through) and that the occupancy in the hotel was always over 90 percent…no problem right?” says Stacy Elliston, principal, RDH & Associates in Addison, Texas. “We learned so much and enjoyed every bit of it. ” Above: A renovated suite parlor at the Omni Parker House in Boston. Solution: Thanks to the more than 100 room types, the designers had no real or correct drawings to rely on. So they went back to basics, walking into every single room with drawings, pencils and tape measures to verify current furniture and electrical layouts, and took down any dimensions that were missing. For more storage space, the designers changed the mirror style to give more room on the wall and added a shelving unit over the toilet. In working in a very busy hotel, they had to coordinate with the general contractor, Suffolk Construction, to coordinate correct deliveries from the warehouse since there were no staging rooms. And, for the design, they embraced the history of the property while blending modern luxury into the experience. They kept the general color palette (think red and gold hues), but added more of a transitional feel with new art (inspired by Parker House artifacts) and draperies, more modern pattern scales, and pedestal sinks in the bathrooms. In some rooms, they kept the existing desk; in others, they designed a traditional style desk/dresser combination done in mahogany that would accommodate the dresser and TV on one side, and the work surface on the other. For the extremely small rooms (what are dubbed the library rooms) they created a built-in corner work surface. “This was such a great project for us. We learned so much and enjoyed every bit of it,” Elliston remembers. “I’ll never forget the day that we had this huge matrix in front of us and we kept counting the rooms over and over again only to come up each time two rooms short of our 551. This exercise had been going on for days. After several attempts, we finally found our lost two rooms, and a huge scream could be heard for miles coming from the conference room that all the rooms and types had been accounted for.” > 12 september 2009 www.newh.org tel 800.593.NEWH http://www.newh.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NEWH - September 2009

NEWH - September 2009
Contents
News
Sustainability: POV
Design 101
Case Study: Project
Case Study: Product
Have you Seen?
Product Know-How: Fabrics
On the Scene
Cover Story: NLP
Project: Langham Shanghai
Project: Founding Farmers
New Members
Save the Date
Partner Profiles

NEWH - September 2009