Hotel Interiors: Space Planning

While discussing sustainability with their clients, some architects point out that strategic planning includes the understanding of building programs and prioritizing spatial requirements. They encourage their clients to reduce their proposed building footprints as an energy-saving strategy for sustainable design.

Tall, frameless doors can create visual illusions in a small hotel room. Photo courtesy of Modernus

 

Designing a small space that is both efficient and interesting requires that the designer pay attention to all of the details. One space-saving strategy that is becoming more popular as a design solution for hotel rooms, spas and restaurants is the use of sliding doors. Sliding doors can be durable and provide flexibility for room design. They also can meet universal design principles when used in renovations as well as new construction.

Scale-Rightsizing

As part of an integrated design process, details do make a difference when part of a sustainable design solution. Doors are the first material that a hotel client touches in the room and that sensation of touch can convey aesthetic experience and emotional feedback. Doors frame views and they help define the scale of a room. The relative visual size of any space is created by the size relationships between objects. Human scale is acknowledged as the average relationship of the height and reach of most people and the sense of space in a room can be dramatically altered by using visual techniques that affect the scale and proportion of a room space. Oversized door openings create an illusion of height even in small rooms and when the ceiling height can be as low as 8 feet. Tall frameless doors of the same size as a framed door make the room look taller and visually alter the proportion of the space. Door openings of the same size look larger without casings around the door opening. Even very small rooms or a tightly enclosed room like a bathroom can look or feel larger by manipulating the sense of scale in a room.

Small hotel rooms also feel bigger with sliding glass doors. The USGBC, The American Society of Interior Designers and The Hospitality Industry Network sponsored a sustainable suite design competition at the 2010 Hospitality Design Expo. The award-winning hotel room highlights many strategies that presented "luxury redefined as effortless sustainability."⁴ Sliding glass walls and doors were used as just one way to add value to the aesthetics of this space. Sliding glass doors in the bathroom or on closets increases the apparent usable square foot area in a small space.

This sketch compares flush frames used to extend space visually. Sketch courtesy of Modernus