03 Nov Nous Design features in Sleeper Magazine
Europe’s leading hotel design event announces new names, fresh ideas and returning greats. Sleep, Europe’s leading hotel design event, has released the first details about its line-up for 2014. Given a record-breaking show last November which saw increased national and international attendance, more first-time exhibitors than ever before, a new ‘Tech Hub’ exhibiting some of the latest in hotel that takes ‘simplexity’ – the emerging theory of a relationship between simplicity and complexity – as its core value. Designers will be tasked with creating an original guest experience that translates across any number of gateway cities and delivers ease of maintenance and longevity. Chair of The Sleep Set judging panel Conrad as well being fully functional. Composed of 1.5 tonnes of Laufen’s ceramic washbasins, the bar was backed by an eye-catching installation from Vlad Tenu.
Reflecting on the experience, Nir Gilad, Director of Nous Design says: “Designing the Sleep Bar was a fantastic experience. The team at Nous Design loved the challenge of technology, captivating lighting installations, and concept rooms reinventing the spirit of Pop Art, 2013 is undoubtedly a hard act to follow”. However, the story of Sleep has been one of constant evolution and innovation and early signs are that the event coming up this November will once again reinforce Sleep’s reputation as the incubator of new ideas, the stage for leading-edge products and the place to do business.
One change to note is that the hugely popular concept rooms competition has a new name, The Sleep Set, hinting at the outstanding degree of inspiration and sheer hard work that a specially selected band of design and fit-out collaborators puts in each year to create this unique showcase. The challenge for 2014 is to create a guestroom blueprint for a new hotel brand.
Smith, Managing Director of ReardonSmith Architects, comments: “Each year, it has been very humbling to see the effort, creativity and passion of the teams, not to mention some great ideas that could easily translate into real hotel guestrooms. I think that this year’s challenge is particularly exciting since it revolves around a philosophical idea yet the outcome has to be commercial, a model room for a new hotel brand”.
Smith will be joined by fellow judges Katherine Blaisdell, Vice President of Technical Services at Belmond, and Marco Nijhof, CEO of Yoo Hotels.
Another of Sleep’s standout concepts is the Sleep Bar, re-imagined each year by a different design practice. In 2013, Nous Design worked with Laufen to produce a stunning bar that took on a sculptural quality creating an experimental design piece. It is always a challenge to surprise the industry that has seen it all. We received a fantastic response from the hospitality community and overwhelming support from our design colleagues.
This year, it will be the turn of Swedish studio Stylt Trampoli AB, who last year won a European Hotel Design Award for their design of Cuckoo’s Nest at the Radisson Blu Riverside in Gothenburg. So, expect the unexpected! For now however, Stylt Trampoli’s founder and Creative Director, Erik Nissen Johansen, remains tight-lipped.
“Let’s just say that our brains are going at full tilt right now. I don’t want to give anything away at this point, but I can promise that it will be unlike anything you’ve ever seen before”, he says. Stylt Trampoli will partner with Martek for the on-site fitout.