Sleep unveils new installations
Sleep 2015 has announced a series of installations and conference presentations that will examine the opportunity of convergence in creating and using space within modern hotels.
Three leading architecture and design practices will challenge and probe the definition of spaces, combining the contradictory in order to create something groundbreaking. As hospitality lifestyle brands continue to soar in popularity, this year’s Convergence designers respond to the recent proliferation of workspaces that embrace play, reflected in the growing market for hybrid lobby concepts and bedrooms that blur the lines between work and rest.
A playful concept is anticipated from The Manser Practice who, in association with Elegant Clutter, will contemplate the meaning of convergence in terms of the coming together of opposites to produce something unexpected. “Exciting things happen when the functional and fanciful merge,” says Jane Lawrence, Director of Interior Design at the practice. “This is particularly true in hotel design where it is important that the hotel fulfils the guest’s practical needs but also stimulates the senses.” Visitors can expect to be intrigued by an installation that goes beyond the obvious to reveal the extraordinary.
Multi-disciplinary practice Il Prisma Group, which has pioneered a change in attitude towards how we use interior space will create the ‘Social Harbour’. This is a refuge for ‘new nomads’, digital travellers and smart workers, and adheres to Il Prisma’s mission to redefine habits. Described as an inside/outside experience, it allows users choice to create a personalised space where they are supported, rather than dictated to, by design and technology that can transform the environment.
With improved mobile connectivity and flexibility resulting in changes in working practice, the rise of the ‘frictionless office’ has led to hotels becoming the default workplace for many. International architecture and design practice Perkins+Will is combining its hospitality experience with workplace consultancy to identify the potential opportunities of this development for the hotel market. Tom Hupe, Director of Hospitality at the firm, is considering each area within a hotel from lobby to guestroom to develop a design proposal tailored to meet the needs of today’s professionals for whom ‘the office’ has become an increasingly abstract idea.
Sleep will take place from 23-24 November at the Business Design Centre, London.
