It's the kind of brilliant idea that hits you while watching a
Designer Finals marathon on Home & Garden Television. If people let interior design students into their homes for renovation projects, why not give them a crack at a hotel project with a meetings market bent? That is exactly what Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts management wondered in light of the recent spate of reality programming focusing on design, so they created the Crowne Plaza Meeting Space-Off challenge for students.
Crowne Plaza, headquartered in Atlanta, chose two local schools to participate: American InterContinental University (AIU) at Buckhead and the Lamarr Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia. Each school then selected two of its top students to participate in the challenge, during which competitors created and pitched designs for the Crowne Plaza Atlanta-Perimeter NW’s boardroom.
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The judges—Kevin Kowalski, vice president of brand management for Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts; Hugh Anderson, general manager of the Atlanta-Perimeter NW; and design review personnel from corporate headquarters—chose Kevin Knight as the winner. Knight, a design student at AIU, who will graduate in March, has some experience with residential design, but this was his first commercial installation.
"Kevin had a great concept," says Kowalski. "It had an eco-friendly bent to it that had some sales cachet. When you’re selling something you look for a neat angle and his design had one."
Knight’s concept centered on sustainable design. A space with sustainable elements is environmentally friendly during installation and can be returned to the environment easily through recycling when it is eventually renovated again, according to Knight. Sustainable design is of personal interest to Knight, but he believes it to be an industry trend as well. In keeping with that trend, Knight incorporated wool fabrics and bamboo flooring, which does not deplete forests because it regrows within three to five years.
For a fabric to be considered environmentally friendly "it has to be all natural, but must have certain levels of durability for installation in commercial spaces," explains Knight, so he selected 100-percent wool with some chemical treating that makes it fire retardant. "Another part of sustainability is, if it’s not broke don’t fix it," says Knight, so he left the relatively new chairs in the boardroom as well as a credenza, though the credenza did get new knobs to update its look.
Although Knight’s design has a clean and contemporary feel, the rest of the hotel is considerably more traditional. "I served that up as a challenge," says Kowalski, who told the designers, "It’s a traditional hotel; take that into consideration and have a rationale for what you do." And Kowalski says that although Knight’s design is more contemporary, that it reflects the rest of the hotel in terms of color palette and other elements. "His design is very simple, even though it’s contemporary. It doesn’t clash, but it makes the room a showpiece for the hotel and that justified doing it in a different style."
"My design kept things simple," explains Knight. "I didn’t want a lot of fluff or tchotchkes. Also, because it’s a boardroom, I wanted it to be sophisticated and strong, so I incorporated the square, which is a strong shape." He also added pinboards on the walls so that groups no longer need to tape materials to the wall.
"I did make a strong suggestion to add a flat panel to the room and I left a wall completely blank to emphasize that it needs to be done," says Knight. Kowalski says that Crowne Plaza has not committed to adding the flat panel yet, but is exploring what to add to complete the room from a technological angle.
Sticking to the $12,000 budget "was next to impossible," according to Knight, who ended up going somewhat over budget by including a pendant light that was approved by Crowne Plaza. The hotel indicated that certain additional expenditures would be possible if they were deemed appropriate, including technological items like the flat panel, which did not fit into the budget.
Knight completed the design alone, and was assisted by a team of contractors and the hotel’s chief engineer during installation. He had two weeks to design the room, then three weeks for installation, though he commented that he could have used extra time for installation and less for design.
"Because it was a fun program and we had an opportunity to showcase a young designer, get some good PR, and upgrade a meeting space," Kowalski says Crowne Plaza is considering taking the Meeting Space-Off to other properties. "We may do six or eight or 10 other markets."
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