Four teams have been announced for this year’s Sleep Set competition, with some of the industry’s most celebrated designers participating.

Nigel Coates Studio, Dreimeta, NoChintz and recent newcomer SKM Design are all taking up the creative challenge within Sleep where different design teams present their take on the hotels of tomorrow in a series of visionary room sets.

This year’s brief is to create a guestroom blueprint for a new hotel brand which takes “simplexity” as its core value, the emerging theory of a relationship between simplicity and complexity. The Sleep Set will explore how hotel interior designers can reverse the current trend of complexity and create more harmonious and intuitive experiences for guests.

Nigel Coates is one of Britain’s consistently original thinkers in architecture, interiors and product design. He has continued to explore the communicative and experiential potential of architecture as a language drawn from the commonplace. With the premise that a successful hotel room should be both a home from home and “a step up from the banal reality of travel”, Nigel Coates Studio has taken one of its Cubist designs, the ‘Feral’ chair, as the generator of its Sleep Set design concept. The chair’s angular form is transferred into the room itself creating a dynamic space that will encourage guests to discover their own way of inhabiting it. The studio has partnered with contractor Ligna Group and sponsor Alchemy Design Award to realise the room set.

German design studio Dreimeta is best known for its award-winning work for the pioneering ‘25hrs’ and ‘Superbude’ brands which have revolutionised urban hostel and hotel stays. The studio’s Sleep Set proposition, ‘Micasa’, is a holistic hotel concept aimed at experienced travellers in search of inspiring, pure spaces; it expresses a ‘new simplicity’ meaning the balance between a sustainable lifestyle, modern and traditional values and economic efficiency. The room’s minimalistic design will emphasise a peaceful and stress-free environment, allowing plenty of freedom for the guest.

Manchester-based creative studio NoChintz specialises in interior design and branding, bringing head-turning design to spaces, places and brands. Recent work includes the characterful ‘Inn at John O’Groats’ in Scotland. Working closely with collaborative partner Johnson Tiles (makers of the 900,000 ceramic poppies which form the First World War tribute at the Tower of London), NoChintz’s concept for Sleep Set will showcase a trend-focused and creative mythology to deliver a room that is distinctive and original in its approach to hospitality yet simple and luxurious for the user.

SKM Design is a recent newcomer to hospitality design. Based in Leicester and founded just five years ago, the company has built a reputation for outstanding and thought provoking architectural and interior design concepts. By confronting preconceptions of a ‘typical’ hotel room, SKM aims to demonstrate how it can change traditional approaches to the hospitality sector with a Sleep Set design that will reference intriguing inspirations from Sir Isaac Newton to Pink Floyd and iconic 1980s sci-fi film ‘Tron’.

The Sleep Set judges will be Katherine Blaisdell, Vice President of Technical Services at Belmond, Marco Nijhof, CEO of yoo Hotels and Conrad Smith, Managing Director of ReardonSmith Architects.

Anticipating his involvement in The Sleep Set, Marco Nijhof comments: “Sleep has always been an event where people connect and where new trends are recognised and extended upon. I am more convinced than ever before of the power of design and the value it brings to real estate projects, and I am looking forward to exploring the ideas that The Sleep Set will surely generate this year.”

Visitors will be able to delight in another stand-out concept in the space, the Sleep Bar, sponsored by Sleeper Magazine, which is each year re-imagined by a different design company. This year, award-winning Swedish design studio Stylt Trampoli together with contractor Famos Scandinavia AB, have envisioned a fresh and vibrant concept that will weave flora and fauna into a nature-based design inspired by the past life of the venue, the Business Design Centre. Stylt creative director Erik Nissen Johansen explains: “The Royale Agricultural Bar will be an example of how storytelling can combine with customer insights to create an experience that engages and inspires. We want to revive the simplicity and grand spectra of nature and will be inviting visitors to step into our imaginary garden.”

The Sleep Event, incorporating the Conference, Exhibition and Sleep Set, will be held 26−27 November at the Business Design Centre in Islington, London. The winning team for Sleep Set will be announced at 7pm on the first day of Sleep following tours of the rooms by the judges and a conference session at 3.30pm.

www.thesleepevent.com