Guestrooms: Living Area as a Focal Point

As Scott Maloney travels the globe, he makes it his mission to visit as many exciting hotels as possible, searching for unique design concepts, clever ideas, and inspirations from vast reaches. Recently, while in Amsterdam with EO, Scott had the opportunity to visit Zoku, and was quite impressed at the progressive thinking the owners employed to design this hotel. Zoku is an extended stay product that focuses on the business traveler who has long term stay needs. The operations are quite out of the box, and meld the serviced apartment philosophy with social media in a physical form. Incredible design and detail, mingle cool touches throughout the hotel.

The one thing that stood out the most was the de-emphasizing of the bed in their hotel rooms. As you enter, the focus is on the living space with a couch, coffee table, TV, and a dining room table. The bedroom is elevated above the bathroom and accessed by a custom designed movable stair, which they have patented. A very novel idea where you have ceiling heights of 12-feet or more.

By moving the bed out of the primary floor area, they were able to increase the utilized guestroom space by nearly 1/3 over a traditional guestroom. Putting the focus on the living space makes this hotel room truly feel like home when you walk in the door.

This forward thinking product would be perfect for areas with high building density, in conversions where apartment and hotel rooms can be intermixed leveraging shared services, and near college / university campuses with adequate ceiling heights.

If you would like to be put in touch with the owners and creators of this concept or to discuss creative solutions for your next hotel project, contact Scott Maloney.

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