Hospitable Ingenuity! Inspired Hotel Designs

Hello DIY Design readers! I am Eva from Shop 4 Furniture. I’d like to say thanks to Judy who gave me an opportunity to write a guest post on her blog. I hope you enjoy it.

Hotels, and the hospitality industry, represent a concept that is relatively isolated to their cause. Design, and architecture are the key element in any hotels brand. How a hotel is designed, both inside and out, determine price, star rating and of course, overall profitabilty. Therefore, in the hospitality industry especially, we are beginning to see a trend of rapidly expanding, ever ingenious architectural inspiration. From classically designed, romantic architecture, to the stripped back bare essentials, we delve into this trend and check out 3 novel interpretations.

Thorngrove Manor, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

Thorngrove Manor represents a classical approach to quint-essential luxury. In fact, it has been a proud member of the Small Luxury of the World collective since 1995 and prides itself on maintaining its immaculate reputation year after year.

“Thorngrove was created to perform a function and a service, but also to be an ornamental and landmark building.“ The designers have achieved this aim with utter certainty, with the final product being a romantic, luxurious hotel deep in beautiful South Australian countryside.

Based on the classical, Victorian-Gothic style of architecture, the building would not look out of place in a Harry Potter movie, or alternatively against the backdrop of an elegant Jane Austen period romance. However, do not be fooled by it’s classical apperance. Inside, top-of-the-range, über modern appliances adorn every wall blending ecclectically with the four-poster beds and antique furniture, maintaining the awe from the inside. The classical, period style design continues inward with each wall, ceiling and floor finished in a flawlessly ornate style, leaving each guest emersed in a captivatingly romantic atmosphere that will absolutely never fail to impress.

STF Kolarbyn Eco Lodge, Sweden

STF Kolarbyn Eco Lodge presents guests with a new style of accomodation, and leaves a stark contrast against Thorngrove Manor’s romantically styled architecture.

Not worlds apart from the type of make-shift shelter you may expect a member of the SAS to bed down in, STF Kolarbyn is an excitingly unique prospect. Each hut is made out of all natural, sustainable materials from the surrounding forest and quite frankly could be missed by anyone not paying complete attention. However, this stripped back, bare style of accomodation can be as romantic as the extravagant Thorngrove Manor. Its all natural design promotes a unique ability to allow guests to connect intimately with nature, uninterrupted by the annoyances of modern living.

Inside each hut you will not find a drop of running water or a single volt of electricity. You will find a two bunk beds, a wood fire and the only source of light shall be candle. Guests are expected to chop their own wood to provide the well-needed heat for a good nights sleep, though you only have to pick the blueberries that grow directly on each hut to give you a well needed energy boost for all the chopping. Though we’re not sure this technically counts as half-board?

This stripped back, all natural style of design is an exciting concept, one of which I’m sure we shall see go from strength to strength in this ever growing world of environmental paranoia.

Poseidon UnderSea Resort, Fiji

We now look to the future, to see an exciting new project which is sure to change the way hotels are designed. The Poseidon Undersea Resort is an ambitous project to build luxury, 5 star accomodation 40 feet below the Sea.

The underwater resort will consist of 25 suites, alongside another 51 luxury suites in its ajoining, on-island complex. The underwater rooms will be connected to the (privately owned) island via two piers with elevators carrying guests to and from their luxury accomodation. A particular, novel idea of which we are extremely excited about is the addition of each guest having the opportunity to pilot one of four 1000-foot long personal submarines through the pristine 5000 acre private lagoon. The exotic fish on offer swimming through the reefs will be an incredible sight to wake up to each morning, and is certian to allow guests to drift off to sleep in the utmost of elegance and luxury.

The actual design of the hotel itself however, resembles something you may expect to see grace the surface of Mars in science fiction stories. Each pod is designed to ensure complete stability and provide absolute safety for every guest on board, eradicating any chance of the worst-scenario-possible occurring. With this in mind, each underwater pod will be encased almost entirely in glass to allow every guest the opportunity to view panoramic scenes of the reef surrounding them, and of the awesome array of sea life living in the crystal clear waters.

Though this project may seem like an ambitous idea, we shall certainly see it surface (or indeed submerge?) in the very near future. Full design and engineering plans have been drawn, with the only final obstacle being the securing of necessary funding. However, Poseidon Undersea Resorts (Fiji) LLC and affiliated companies are confident of the start of construction being within the next three to four years, and an intended construction period of a further 2 years. If all goes to plan it is certianly a viable notion that we will be seeing a brand new shift in the hospitality industry by 2020.

Hotels have to constantly counter developements headed by their competitors. The speed the hospitality industry is initiating astounding hotel designs to stay one step ahead creates an architectural vaccuum generally isolated to this industry. The result, as these three examples vividly demonstrate, is an über exciting prospect for the future of hotel design, and for the future of holidaying.

Image Credits: The Poseidon Undersea Resort images were courtesy of Poseidon Undersea Resorts LLC and the STF Kolarbyn image was sourced from www.svenskaturistforeningen.se and we have complete permission to publish all of the images.

Thanks Eva.

Have a great weekend.

-Judy