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Play: Lodging

Findings

01 Defining Safety

• Work travel

  • Perfecting personal protection is the first step to safety.

  • Regimens for staff screening and testing should become systematic and transparent to the guest.

  • Hotels will need to provide on-site testing of symptoms first, and then testing for a virus when available.

• Leisure travel

  • Until risk is managed, focus will be on local travel by automobile - an environment the traveler controls, combined with all the safety measures defined for WORK travel should be implemented.

    The Future of Travel, New York Times

  • Until risk can be managed, leisure travel will not be as attractive.

    • For those who chose to travel, there will be interest in lodging that allows a guest to enter from the outside directly into their room. Old concepts for lodging will be revitalized. The question, for new hotel designs will this become a new trend.
      The Future of Travel, New York Times

02 A cleaner place to be than home.

• Cleaning should become systematic and transparent to the guest.

  • Frequency of disinfection should be publicized, especially in high touch areas

  • Clean seal on doors to indicate no one has entered since room was cleaned
    Defining New Standards of Cleanliness, Hilton

  • Minimalistic design enables more thorough cleaning.

    • Carpet to be replaced with rugs in guest rooms so they are easy to remove and clean.

    • More easily sanitized hard surfaces, including tables, chairs, flooring.

    • Easy-to-clean textiles a must, reduction of fluff (throw pillows, bed runners)

    • Removal of paper amenities such as directories and pads of paper

  • Personal hygiene infrastructure.

    • Touchless elevator controls

    • Temperature sensors for large-scale events
      Hotels in Asia Revise Renovation Designs to Suit Post-Covid World, Skift Defining New Standards of Cleanliness, Hilton

• Individual isolation

  • Reduction in interaction between guests as well as between guests and staff

    • More in-room wellbeing vs communal fitness and spa
      Hotels in Asia Revise Renovation Designs to Suit Post-Covid World, Skift

03 Hotels will offer ‘comfort’ during quarantine.

• Hotels are uniquely suited to offer a positive quarantine experience

• Place to isolate/recover away from family and co-workers.

• Alternative location to work or rest.

• Privacy

• Quarantine Services

  • Hotel rooms for hospital workers

    • Many need a place to stay in areas with high number of cases

  • Hotel rooms used for quarantine or some type of medical care

    • Hotels used for medical purposes need to be exclusively for that purpose

  • Many are providing rooms to help the covid-19 cause at steep discounts and sometimes even free. These individual concessions by lodging companies should be mandated and government funded.

  • Some hotels housing homeless because they are at higher risk of catching the virus
    Hospitality Design Trends Before and After the Pandemic, CP Executive How the Travel Industry is Helping the Coronavirus Response, Washington Post

04 Transactions to be limited or faceless and touchless.

• High levels of hospitality services with barriers always separating staff from guests

• Maid service possibly only at check-out to minimize contact

• Check in/out, room service to be touchless.

• In luxury brands, personal service by protected individual staff (or robotic).

• Future hotels to bring back separate hatch to transfer room service, dry cleaning, etc. from hallway to inside rooms without entering the room
  The Manser Practice Envisions the Post-Pandemic Hotel, Dezeen

• Apps used for transactions or barriers between staff and guests.
  Grounded by Design Event Talks Wellness Post Covid, Hotel Business

05 Just passing through…

• Guests transition from space to space with optimum distancing,, no social gathering or congregating

• Lobbies have generously spaced furniture to avoid congregating.

• No TVs in public areas to limit loitering and congration

• Elevator lobbies more spacious and larger elevators for distancing for future design. Limited number of people in an elevator at a time for current pandemic.

• Wider hallways for passage and service (room deliveries)

• Grab ‘n’ go refreshments, no communal dining spaces

• No pools, fitness areas or fitness by appointment slots with cleaning in-between; consider in-room fitness equipment
  Hospitality Design Trends Before and After the Pandemic, CP Executive

06 Air quality is paramount.

• Guestrooms need isolation, fresh air supply and individual exhaust

• Negative pressure at floors.
  Hotels in Asia Revise Renovation Designs to Suit Post-Covid World, Skift

• High filtration (HEPA), disinfection (germicidal ultraviolet) at mechanical units to stop airborne transmission.

• Increased focus on providing outdoor spaces for guests

07 Space, the final frontier.

• Expectation for smaller conferences/meetings. Repurposing of existing large rooms to divide into smaller rooms that maintain enough social distancing room for guests
  Hotels in Asia Revise Renovation Designs to Suit Post-Covid World, Skift

• More storage space needed due to increased cleaning services

• Increase size of rooms in existing hotels by removing one bed from rooms that have two beds.

• In new designs, rooms to be larger to accommodate more in-room entertainment / functions such as exercise equipment
  The Manser Practice Envisions the Post-Pandemic Hotel, Dezeen

• Return of the paternoster lift, which are smaller and open to the air
  The Manser Practice Envisions the Post-Pandemic Hotel, Dezeen

• Larger rooms are adaptable for long term occupancies during quarantining;

  • work area

  • Fitness equipment

  • food storage/(simple) cooking

  • distanced visitation

Play: Dining

Findings

01 Defining Safety

• Contactless Dining

  • Physical menus gone, no cash payment, no shared condiments

• Self service is a hazard

  • Touch screens, beverage and condiment stations, buffets may go to the wayside

• Staff need to be tested, initially for symptoms, and whenever available for the new virus.

• Signage critical to advertise take-out abilities and provide an assurance of health safety

  • Markers on the floor for social distancing, signs explaining policies, etc.
    Covid-19 for Restaurants, What’s Working and What Will Become Part of the New Normal, FSR Magazine Escapist Restaurant Interiors Could be Lasting Design Legacy of the Pandemic, Dezeen

• Restaurants are a critical part of the public sphere. They will return by incorporating modifications that provide trust and safety

  • Fundamental as places of hospitality, gatherings, celebrations, and day-to-day activities

  • Provide convenience and sustenance, 24/7

• Restaurants have always had our trust. Focus should be on rebuilding this trust

  • Transparency of kitchens to let guests see that food is prepared safely
    Escapist Restaurant Interiors Could be Lasting Design Legacy of the Pandemic, Dezeen

  • Ensure trust through visual certifications of compliance

• Modifications to be made such as transparent screens for any self serve areas

• An environment that is easily navigable through interior design and signage furthers the mission of public adherence to protocols and regulations.

• Support people - employees need to have safe, protected working conditions

  • All employees to have temperature checks

  • All employees and guests required to wear masks

02 A cleaner place to be than your own kitchen.

• Cleaning should become systematic and transparent to the guest.

  • Frequency of disinfection.

  • Minimalistic design enables more thorough cleaning

    • Rejection of ornamentation

    • Microbial materials everywhere, not just in the kitchen. These materials allow for quick, easy, and thorough cleaning.
      Escapist Restaurant Interiors Could be Lasting Design Legacy of the Pandemic, Dezeen

  • Personal hygiene infrastructure

    • Automatic doors, touchless sinks/ hand dryers, hand sanitizer available, etc.

03 Food safety now has spatial implications.

• Established food regulations and health & sanitation codes will be coupled with operational distancing, exchange areas, customer contact zones to affect restaurant floor plans.

• Flexibility and agility of design for pre- and post- pandemic scenarios.

• Spatial changes affect the public realm (waiting, dining) and back of house (delivery transition, storage, kitchen).

• New configurations will prioritize ease of cleaning and emphasize sanitation to create a safe environment for guests

• Inventive devices for safe restaurant eating

  • Glass cabins for 2-3 people
    Dutch Restaurant Trials Glass Booth for Dining Amid Coronavirus, Reuters

  • Suspended 360 degree, plexiglass shields over each dining chair
    Christophe Gernigon’s Hanging Shields Imagine Future of Restaurant Dining, designboom

04 Dining on-site will be less communal.

• Atmosphere will come from other aspects of spatial design and less from vitality, vibrancy, and buzz of other fellow diners.
  Escapist Restaurant Interiors Could be Lasting Design Legacy of the Pandemic, Dezeen

• Six foot rule may not be possible to implement and maintain viable seating counts within existing spaces; creative solutions to seating (booths, small private rooms)

• Getting a drink at the bar while you wait for a table needs to be rethought. Invent solutions that make people feel comfortable; just in time seating, niches where patrons feel separate, and tempered outdoor spaces comfortable year round.

• Elimination of buffet-style and family-style food servery.

• Elimination of all self-serve stations is not possible, but these areas should be minimized and configured with new safeguards.

05 Increased Focus on the Take-out

• Challenges in retrofitting space to provide enough space for designated takeout areas, drive through windows, etc

• Restaurants may feel a social obligation to provide takeout meals for essential workers

• Family meals and meal kits to now be available options for take-out

• Decreased menu options for take-out efficiency

• Easier and faster to produce with limited staff

• Packaging

  • The new factor of tamper proof will be added to existing factors of price, function, and sustainability
    Covid-19 for Restaurants, What’s Working and What Will Become Part of the New Normal, FSR Magazine

06 Restaurants have an integral role in the public realm.

• Where seasonally possible, extend on-site dining to the outdoors.

• Expansion of facilities for uses outside the confines of the premises (such as sidewalks, curbside areas) need regulatory barriers (zoning, etc.) for dining use to add to the urban vitality (replace some of what is lost due to reduced densities indoors).

• Enhance the convenience of guest access: pedestrians, cyclists, pick-up.

07 Air quality, staff health, contamination…

• Add High filtration (HEPA), disinfection (germicidal ultraviolet) at mechanical units to stop airborne transmission; fresh outside air.

• Staff are checked; changing and storage areas for donning clean attire and PPE.

• Where possible utilize no-touch (apps, digital displays) or disposal items (one-use menus)

  • No touch solutions for touch screens/ self service such as voice commands
    Covid-19 for Restaurants, What’s Working and What Will Become Part of the New Normal, FSR Magazine

  • High-touch surfaces - doors, knobs, chairs, tables, dispensers - be of antimicrobial materials or cleaned after every use.

  • Restrooms are a particular point of congregation and therefore are high risk zones; public facing handwashing stations to encourage and socialize the ritual of washing before meals?

08 Escapist experience for special occasion dining ($$).

• Reservations more important than ever to control occupancy and planning seat distancing

• Branded experience to rely on designed sensual experiences beyond the food and vibrancy of communal patronage.

• Higher end, experience based restaurants are better able to space out tables and still be successful financially

• People more willing to venture out in public for an experience they can’t have at home

• Push for more originality
  Escapist Restaurant Interiors Could be Lasting Design Legacy of the Pandemic, Dezeen