Dana - Chicago

Conceived as the city’s first independent, locally operated, luxury lifestyle hotel to be built from ground up, Dana Hotel and Spa has been designed to integrate into the community, as well as bring a personal touch to the boutique experience. Devised and managed by Chicago-based Neighborhood Development Corporation (NDC), in a joint venture with Gold Coast Hotels, the US$60 million property opened in summer 2008 in the city’s vibrant River North district.

Drawing on the hospitality values of old-fashioned, traditional inn-keeping, NDC Principals Eugene Kornota and Bonnie Roberts-Kornota wanted to merge a warm, service-driven ethos with a design-conscious lifestyle product. “Our office is right next door because we are personally involved with the hotel’s management and this transcends down to our staff and our support of local organisations,” outlines Roberts-Kornota. “We don’t believe in being far removed from the properties we operate.”

Born and raised in Chicago, the two principals were inspired by and respectful of the local community. “There was a transient, run-down hotel here called Dana and though we couldn’t save the building, we did keep the name and develop our concept around it,” explains Kornota. “Dana means ‘the pleasure of giving’ in Sanskrit.” Although they didn’t want the project to be pigeonholed, they decided to subtly borrow from Asian philosophy both from an aesthetic and service point of view. Another overriding consideration was providing a legacy to the city. Kornota continues: “When it is a ground-up construction, you can build it ugly and still make money. But we are proud of Chicago and wanted to give something back. So our ground floor, which connects to street level, is handed over to a restaurant with a sidewalk café while check-in takes place on the second floor lobby. We’ve also introduced planting on the west-facing sheer wall of the building with local residents in mind.”
Designed by Chicago’s Eckenhoff Saunders Architects, the 150,000ft2 property rises 26 storeys and is distinguished by a 28-foot transparent glass window that allows people to see in. The site’s slender footprint – each floor covers only 5,700ft2  – meant that careful interior planning was required to ensure a full set of lifestyle services could be offered here. Andre Landon, Design Director of EDI Architecture, was selected to develop the interiors, having worked with NDC on a previous hospitality project. “We were given the basic layout at an early stage so immediately recognised there would be a strong limitation on the size of spaces we created,” he says. “It wasn’t suitable to design the main public spaces on one floor so we looked at giving the ground and second floors overlapping functions.”

An undulating timber wall of burnished maple acts as a unifying anchor between the two floors, with the ground accommodating ajasteak restaurant, a bar and a two-storey mica fireplace, and the second housing a sociable lobby space with reception. Restaurant elements such as a sushi bar and tatami room cascade into the second floor via a connecting staircase. The sushi floor also benefits from a semi-floating steel platform finished with see-through, woven steel-mesh drapery.
Jarrah wood flooring in the lobby and stairs is reclaimed from a factory while wooden poles are used sculpturally to create screens around the private dining spaces. Materials such as rubber, slate and metal take their cue from industrial projects but they are contrasted effectively with Asian finishing touches such as an ornate hanging kimono and a five-foot-tall bronze bell imported from Vietnam that hangs over guests as they make their way up a bent steel stairwell to reception. Backlit metal artwork on the restaurant stairs is based on the thumbprint of Houston-based artist Noah Edmundson, who also completed the millwork for the project. “An organic process took place that involved us bringing together lots of materials and stretching the way in which we could use them to achieve better function and longevity,” says Landon. “We selected unfinished surfaces and solid colours rather than decorative patterns so that the design would express itself in a direct manner. The earthy tone to the spaces simply evolved out of our use of natural materials chosen often for durability.”

In a nod to the exposed concrete of the exterior, Landon has harnessed the material within the 216 guest rooms, adding hand-scraped maple wood floors that are softened by earth-coloured carpets from Designweave and tactile wall coverings sourced from MDC Walls. Floor-to-ceiling windows, Enrapture beds by Serta, Bowers & Wilkins ‘Zeppelin’ audio equipment and oversized showers visible from the room are other distinctive features. Dana’s two Nirvana Penthouse Suites are impressive both in size and look, with spa-inspired showers finished off with river rock flooring.

While the interconnecting spaces of the ground and second floor act as social hubs during the day, the emphasis shifts to the Vertigo Sky Lounge at night. Located on the 26th floor, the lounge affords spectacular views through full-length windows while an outdoor area features an open-fire pit, custom-designed amoeba-shaped wood furniture and moon-globe lighting for ambience. Tattoo imagery is used as bold pieces of art while the unisex toilets have black chalkboard walls on which visitors can inscribe words of wisdom.

In developing the overall design, EDI Architecture has crafted a hotel that isn’t overly self-conscious yet is packed with texture, finishes and materials of visual interest. Roberts-Kornota sums up the results best: “We didn’t want overcool or sterile but something contemporary and urban. The idea was not to wow people with slick finishes but make them feel at home.”