Everything has a purpose Design for people Function & Aesthetics

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  Everything has a purpose
  
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  Design for people
  
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  Function & Aesthetics
  
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  Establish a substantial experience
  
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  Establish an appropriate experience
  
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  Satisfy technical requirements
  
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  Lowest possible cost
  
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  Provide for supervision ease
  

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  The placement of seating in lobby areas (hotels, airports, etc.) can have dramatic effects on visitor spending and enjoyment
  
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  Not only should seating placement be considered, but the type of seat is also of concern
  

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  Often lobby seating makes conversation difficult, and can encourage people to sit in a nearby bar (where they also spend money)
  

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  If you satisfy the customer, but fail to get a profit, you’ll soon be out of business
  
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  If you get a profit, but fail to satisfy the customer, you’ll soon be out of customers
  

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  Commercial or Transient Hotels
  
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  Convention Hotels
  
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  Motels and Motor Hotels
  
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  Condominium Hotels
  
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  Residential/Apartment Hotels
  
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  Casino Hotels
  
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  All-suite Hotels
  
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  Resorts
  

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  Although there are design considerations unique to each type of hotel, we’ll look more closely at the commercial or transient hotel
  

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  We know the history of hotels and importance of properties like the Tremont House, the Statler, the Palace, the Stevens and the Waldorf=Astoria
  
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  Each of these has made a substantial impact on the importance of major hotel properties in the city
  

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  Even so, most still employed the same design technique of putting long hallways with rooms facing off either side
  

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  One of the first hotels to radically alter the way downtown hotels were designed was the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta
  
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  Designed by John Portman
  
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  Opened in 1967
  
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  The first large building in Atlanta
  
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  Put Hyatt at the forefront of the luxury hotel industry
  

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  American cities were imploding in the 1960s – a process that continued until the 1990s
  
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  Although a natural center for business, many business-level people had negative views of downtowns
  
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  Atlanta itself was all but unknown to most northerners
  

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  John Portman inverted the hotel’s design
  

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  Hotel was not a hall with rooms
  
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  The walls were placed on the far exterior of the site, surrounding a large area
  
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  The area was enclosed, creating an atrium
  
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  The interior of the hotel became a “public” plaza and interaction with the downtown was almost unecessary
  

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  The atrium was twenty-three stories high (the world’s largest)
  
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  All room entries were off the atrium, and therefore the hotel celebrated itself
  
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  From the outside, the hotel appeared almost normal, creating the “wow factor” for guests entering the hotel for the first time
  

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  The entry level of the lobby and the two levels above featured restaurants, cafes, lounges, shops and sitting areas
  
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  Reservations/check-in was located in the main lobby, but off to the side – leaving the main part of the lobby open, inviting guests to linger and gawk
  
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  The outside was now inside
  

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  The atrium wasn’t the only showstopper
  
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  The hotel featured the first-ever cantilevered glass elevators
  

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  The elevators themselves were an amazing design innovation
  
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  The main elevator tower was now more than a transportation shaft – it was a showpiece element
  
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  (Hyatt had two elevators in the back of the property for people afraid to ride the glass ones)
  

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  First atrium hotel
  
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  First glass (suspended) elevators
  
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  Had revolving restaurant on top (first time used at a hotel)
  
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  Created interior space more attractive than exterior space – turned public space into private space
  

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  Original Portman/Hyatt collaboration a huge success
  
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  Hyatt begins to establish itself as a brand that specializes in extreme, exciting and unique pieces of architecture
  
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  Uniqueness in design becomes Hyatt Regency’s feature, which went sharply against the branding of hotels to basically look the same in every city – Hyatt tried to outdo itself with each property
  

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  Hyatt eventually connected by “sky bridges” to other buildings (also done by Portman – Peachtree Center), so that economic activity was removed from the street level
  

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  In 1972, the San Francisco Regency opened
  
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  Very similar to Atlanta’s design, including sky bridges (open air this time) to a series of Portman-designed office towers (Embarcadero Center)
  

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  Hyatt was quickly becoming the brand of choice for luxury
  
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  The hotels’ designs thrust cities into the convention spotlight
  
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  All was going well until Kansas City…
  

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  The Hyatt Regency Crown Center opened in 1980 and became Missouri’s tallest building
  
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  The hotel was jinxed even before it opened, with a collapse of nearly 3000sqft of the atrium during construction (the atrium span was quite large and roof supports failed)
  
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  (Oddly enough, a few months before, Kansas City’s new arena also suffered a roof collapse. The building was empty at the time.)
  

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  The hotel’s lobby was the most ambitious Hyatt had yet built
  
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  The atrium featured four suspended walkways that crossed at various levels across the main lobby space
  
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  The walkways were suspended by cables in an off-set pattern, with the fourth floor skywalk aligned with the second floor skywalk
  

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  July 17^th 1981, the hotel hosted a dance contest, and the lobby space was filled with hundreds of people
  
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  Spectators crowded the skywalks to watch the activity below – drinks flowed, music blasted and the event was attended by the media
  

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  The fourth floor skywalk, again suspended from cabled hanging from the top of the atrium, collapsed, falling to the second floor skywalk, and both falling on the crowded lobby
  
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  114 people were killed, over 200 others injured – until 9/11 the largest loss of life in a structural failure in US history
  

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  Construction firm changed the location of the supporting cables
  

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  Hyatt was criticized for its bold design attempts and the hotel company (somewhat) toned back its designs for a short period
  
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  (Although by 1984, Hyatt Regency opened the Grand Cypress with an even larger lobby
  atrium)
  

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  As mentioned in 180, Atlanta became the center of the extreme hotel boom
  
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  The Westin Peachtree Plaza opened in 1973 and became the world’s tallest hotel (it was connected to the Hyatt Regency by a sky bridge)
  
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  Also designed by John Portman
  

“The Plaza”

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  The Plaza became an immediate landmark and icon for the city
  
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  The round floor plan meant that rooms were pie-shaped, and actually rather small
  
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  The design was copied in Detroit and Los Angeles for their landmark Westin properties
  

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  Marriott made a bid to enter the big hotel game in the late 1980s, again in Atlanta and again with John Portman as architect (he’d done so well with Hyatt and Westin)
  

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  The Marriott design was flashy and extreme, containing the world’s largest atrium (48 floors of open space)
  
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  Large fabric artwork decorated the atrium
  
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  The hotel became a hit with…Hyatt Regency guests
  

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  Marriott tried to imitate Hyatt’s design and ended up realizing the big different between Marriott and Hyatt guests, which had appeared nearly identical demographically (but design was never a demographic question)
  
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  After this realization, Marriott attempted for the next fifteen years to buy Hyatt, but eventually gave up