NEW YORK—As a nature-inspired lifestyle brand, a core tenet of 1 Hotels is its commitment to the environment. Another tenet? Exceptional design. That was the mission of 1 Hotel Central Park in all areas, including lighting.
Michael Laas, corporate director of impact, SH Group, noted that the brand’s commitment to the environment comes from CEO and chairman Barry Sternlicht himself. “He was being exposed to environmental issues, and this idea was conceived: How do we create a hotel brand that’s tackling these issues that speaks to the world we live in now and will live in in the future? Let’s create a brand that’s more than just a business—it’s a mission and a platform for change.”
The brand aimed to use energy-efficient lighting that still has an aesthetic appeal. “We’re in an amazing time for technology and lighting. We have LED lights that provide a huge range of hues, colors and intensities, yet they’re super-efficient; LEDs are only 4W,” said Laas. “Whenever possible, we try to use LED sources.” He noted that the brand doesn’t just look for highly efficient bulbs, but also those with low toxicity.
Kemper Hyers, head of design, Starwood Capital Group, noted that LED variety wasn’t always the case. “We designed this hotel three years ago. In the scope of the world, it wasn’t that long ago. But, in the scope of this technology, that was like a decade ago,” he said. “We had no choices then. The LED technology that was out there to use in our guestrooms was not comfortable and it felt very commercial.” Therefore, the hotel opted to install an energy management system to get to the levels it needed to be at in terms of power usage.
Kelly Hannon, senior designer for Focus Lighting, who worked on the project, noted that an in-room lighting management system can also greatly enhance the guest experience. “It gives guests a way to control their environment. They have selective control over individual lights and overall themes. It gives guests more flexibility.”
Hyers agreed with Laas that things have improved for designers when it comes to LEDs. “Now, we have so many choices,” he said. “A lot still needs to happen in the LED industry; the industry is moving so fast they haven’t had time to catch up with quality and consistency issues but, beyond that, I feel like a free man.”
Hannon added, “I want to do everything I can for the environment, but my role is also to make everything look beautiful. With this project, I cannot tell you how many times technology shifted. It was constant testing to make sure that the LED colors felt nice, that they dimmed well. Every time a new product was released, we needed to test it. Everything we specified when we started doesn’t exist anymore—not in the same form. The great thing is there are LEDs on the project now that, when we started, could not have been LEDs because there was no equivalent.”
Focus Lighting, in conjunction with 1 Hotels and design firm AvroKO, installed a lighting scheme that minimized environmental impact and highlighted the space’s natural features. “Part of our strategy is to get people to understand that, by bringing nature inside and giving you a sense of natural daylight and warm cozy sensibility, we express a new lifestyle around sustainability as much as we do by limitations we put on natural resources,” said Hyers. “Lighting is a huge component of how you feel in that space, and we pay a lot of attention to it feeling sustainable as much as it is sustainable.”
“We worked collaboratively with AvroKO and Starwood’s internal team,” said Hannon. “We knew, from the start, we would be doing an energy-efficient project, so we needed to choose our moments. We love to put in lots of layers of light so you get the highlights on everything. We knew we had to scale that back a bit to strategically focus on the points that were the most important.”
For instance, in the lobby, downlights reveal details found in the natural stone and brick walls. “You have this limestone wall; that’s one of the places where we did use a continuous gradient strip,” said Hannon. “The texture of the material and the strength and solidity of it needed to be emphasized.”
Upstairs, decorative pendants accent moss-lined niches in guestroom doorways, and picture lights illuminate room numbers burned into reclaimed wood at the foot of each door. “In the corridor, there’s preserved and living vegetation,” said Hyers. “The way it isn’t architectural but simple makes the whole thing sing. It’s a very three-dimensional corridor, which you do not get in most hotels.” Added Hannon, “We wanted an accent specifically on that to see that as a repeating element.”
“One of the key design features throughout a lot of the property is this sense of a warm glow, which falls directly on textured materials,” said Hyers. “The aesthetic of the brand is highly textured. Almost every single finish in the hotel has its own inherent, reclaimed natural texture, whether its wood, burlap on the wall or stone that’s straight from the quarry. The design itself is quite minimal. It’s the textures that bring it to life, and the light on those textures that gives it its power.”
The lighting also emphasizes urban elements. For instance, Chef Jonathan Waxman’s restaurant, Jams, features exposed ceiling hardware and cast-iron decorative fixtures. I-beams preserved from the building’s original construction are lit by a variety of recessed LED downlights and mono-point accents. Adjustable track heads were placed to illuminate surrounding artwork and draw attention to raw materials. “We stripped all the design out of the room and left the brick, the wood, the materials and the bare concrete,” said Hyers. “It’s a glowing box; it looks so great from the street.”
In the guestrooms, LED tape lights are tucked in a pocket behind each bed, illuminating a headboard made of reclaimed wood. Additional layers of LED lights complement other raw materials and live plants. This layering continues in the bathrooms, where more LED tape lights are mounted behind the mirrors, producing a halo effect and bringing out the texture in the brick wall behind.
“In all of the projects we work on, we really want to pull in the effect of natural lighting,” said Hannon. “We can take the way natural lighting feels and apply it with the tools in our arsenal.” She pointed to the headboards, noting that the effect has “a cozy feeling, which links back to a fireplace and its warm glow. The same quality is in the lobby, where we’ve got an art installation of hanging pottery pieces, and the lighting effect is meant to be like you’re walking through a clearing in the trees. It’s not a very bright, evenly lit space. There are spots that are brighter and spots that are dimmer, and you’ve got that feel and effect of dapple light.”
“Everything is so subtle,” added Laas. “The design team is very adept at creating moments in the hotel experience that have subtle conversations about sustainability. It’s never in your face or preachy, but you’re mindful of it.”
1 Hotel Central Park will see savings because of the LEDs. According to Focus Lighting, the hotel is 24% below the maximum allowable energy usage.
Laas added, “I did an ROI analysis and the savings on using LEDs is multiplied in so many different ways: reduced electricity consumption and the reduced heat load it generates, which reduces requirements to cool a space and maintain temperature because a lot of incandescent and halogen bulbs produce a lot of heat and the capital costs of changing them out.” He noted that LEDs last for an average of four to six years, whereas incandescent bulbs only last six months to a year. “When you consider labor costs, heating loads, capital costs of purchasing and then operating [costs], the ROI of going to LED pays in a two-year window,” he said. “Within a five-year period, having Central Park be full LED saves us in the realm of $500,000 in the fifth year. It’s significant cost savings over time.” HB