HOSPITALITY is no longer

You served on the FRAME Awards grand jury for Restaurant and Hotel of the Year. What were the main takeaways from the process?

LARRY TRAXLER: The stakes have ramped up significantly with respect to what good design is. We’re no longer just looking for beautiful spaces; when we talk about ‘good design’ the expectations are much higher from everyone involved, and spaces not only have to be fit for purpose, or well-conceived from a business and narrative perspective, but they must respond thoughtfully to environmental, social and cultural drivers, too.

What are the standout recent developments in hospitality?

Sustainability and the ESG message have continued to increase, but the biggest change we’ve seen is in the social behaviours of our guests. There’s a renewed focus on creating agile and flexible designs that morph to suit their needs, whether that’s in the context of business or leisure, relaxation or play. Designing an environment that adapts to different consumer needs at different points in their journey is paramount for a successful space today. Public spaces need to flex between work and social demands, and the lines between indoors and outdoors have blurred as well. Hotels were extremely reliant on outdoor spaces during the pandemic, and I think people are slow to give those connections up. Between public and private, too – it’s important to feel that you have your own space, but that you also have some proximity to a community so as not to feel detached.

How will this evolve throughout 2023? Can these lines be blurred further?

It’s been interesting to see these demands trickling out of the hospitality space and into other sectors like workplace design. This is something we’ve noticed during the redesign of our headquarters, where we’ve been leveraging hospitality ideals into the workplace, and the same goes for residential design, retail, education and even healthcare. The evolution will be more agility and flexibility, and it will bleed into every aspect of the built environment in a way that creates better human usage.

Are there any Hilton projects that demonstrate these shifts?

In the luxury sector we have new projects in central LA and Nashville, both of which respond to a lot of these needs we’re talking about. A flexible lobby that can morph across different times of day, and a blend of indoor and outdoor space, which is really magical in a place like LA. Similarly, a new Hilton in Ohio has some great F&B space that blends between different zones, but even the lifestyle segment is really embracing this shift: a new property in Chelsea and a Tempo in Times Square are both looking closely at how to create seamless transitions between different usages. Public space that bleeds into entertainment spaces and then a food hall, for example.

Many years ago, a hotel was a hotel, and you could differentiate segments by the level of finishes, but programmatically the contents were all the same. You enter and you have a lobby, reception, all-day dining and meeting space. We’re no longer thinking about it that way. Rather, how can we blend all these? What opportunities are there to break the spa away from the main building and create a destination environment? How can we use the roof? Can we use the outside of the building as a projection opportunity? Is there a way parking structures can host outdoor events? I think the pandemic taught us to be a lot more creative and not turn a blind eye towards any space. I love the idea of spaces that continually change. After all, if you visit a hotel four times a year, you don’t want it to