SAVANNAH, GA—In a move as innovative as the new brand designs it is seeking, Staybridge Suites recently called upon graduate students at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) to come up with concepts for interior-design packages it could potentially present to owners and developers.
While a first for the IHG extended-stay brand, the initiative also was the first time the college dedicated interior-design coursework around a commercial product program. Set against four trends—simplification, personalization, sustainability and technology—that the students felt pervaded current society and were important to hotel design, the program yielded four concepts in 10 weeks.
The student designers, many of whom had never stayed at a Staybridge, made site visits to Staybridge properties here and in Atlanta. There they got a feel for the brand, its guests and the needs of the staff and set out to improve on several aspects back at the SCAD studio.
“They gave us confidence early on that they grasped what Staybridge was all about,” said Robert Radomski, vp of global brand management for IHG’s extended-stay brands.
Working with follow-up suggestions from Staybridge team members—for example, white is not a good fabric color in an extended-stay property—the group tackled public spaces, including the brand’s Great Room, library, business center and corridors as well as guest suites.
While Staybridge decided to keep the designs largely under wraps for now with the student portions complete, the objective, Radomski said, is to take the designs back to IHG headquarters in Atlanta for further review by a planning team. “They’re going to take a look at the selections that were made, some of the materials as far as practicality, durability. Then it comes down to doing some more pricing. It’s our goal here to come up with a design scheme that’s very close in cost to what we have today. We want to be respectful of our owners and their investment in that,” he said.
Kevin Woodard, manager of design and plan review for IHG in the Americas, expected two or three design schemes to evolve from the students’ efforts. “I think we’ll be successful in getting that. I think [the students]got really good direction, good materials, good details.”
“We want these new schemes to be executed,” Radomski stressed. “We want this to be an easy choice for our owners. We would like in a lot of ways for owners to get excited about this and perhaps plan an interior improvement maybe ahead of schedule. We want them to get excited about these designs, and what they see may motivate them to do that.”
Most of the design schemes included materials based on their sustainability, such as bamboo or recycled glass. Some also focused on streamlining operations. For example, one design offered a wall-hung toilet to aid in housekeeping. Another scheme rethought public space, creating more options for seating that would face a fireplace. Yet another rethought private space, creating a platform bed that offered built-in storage in the base and provided a rolling table that would work well for a laptop. Color, graphics and enhanced signage also played large roles in the designs.
Thomas Torgerson, chairman and CEO of Torgerson Properties, Inc., which develops, builds and manageshotels and restaurants, and Douglas Lambert, president of management company SouthEastern Hospitality Services, Inc., were among several hoteliers attending the SCAD unveiling. “I really thought it was a creative approach for the Staybridge brand team to enlist these students who really don’t have hospitality backgrounds to just get into our world and then look at it through their eyes,” Torgerson said.
While he didn’t believe Staybridge will “rubber-stamp” any particular idea, Torgerson did feel it was a great place to begin. “Actually, it’s more than a beginning. Now it’s time to put the final polish on and come up with tomorrow’s Staybridge,” he said.
Lambert, whose Staybridge Suites at Savannah Airport hosted and served as an introduction for the student designers to the brand, was impressed by the SCAD students’ approach. “They started with a clean slate. They didn’t come in with preconceived or already-been-used ideas about what should be in the rooms. I think the biggest element was a notion [by the SCAD designers]that people work from different places in the room. Traditionally we think a person works from a desk and we always put a desk in the room. This notion that they may sit in the bed or they have a table they can roll around with a laptop on it is really kind of new and innovative. These [students]will be our customers—if they’re not already—and I think this is an opportunity to adapt to the changes in technology and the way people do business and travel,” Lambert said.
Student designer Sara Badger felt the owners were really receptive to the intention behind the schemes. “We’re trying to present them with something that’s really forward thinking and really effective in the long run for their company in the next 10 years,” she said.
“We’re the people who are coming next,” added student designer Sabrina Nagel. “We’re the generation who is going to be their user and we’ve provided this outlook on [the brand].”
Mitchell (Mitch) Peterson, president of Torgerson Properties, was intrigued by the fresh perspectives and concerns from the designers. “I’m really impressed at how user-driven many of their ideas are. There are real practical elements,” he said.
Shirley Cribbs, SCAD Professor of Interior Design, noted the Staybridge effort “provided a tremendous opportunity for the students to actually interface with the client. Particularly at the graduate level, things tend to be fairly conceptual and theoretical, and that’s good to a point, but there’s a real usefulness in the opportunity for the students to ‘push back’ against a real user.”
The students literally did their homework, interviewing housekeepers, front-desk employees and other team members and made decisions based on input from the staff. “These were very real people who had very real problems and things that affect their lives on a daily basis,” Cribbs said. For example, hotel staff members cited problems with the heaviness of the sleeper sofas when trying to move them to clean.
Radomski said it was too early to say when any of the designs could go from concept to reality, but did expect to have model rooms to showcase the designs perhaps in the fall.
“We have our conference coming up [then]and it would be nice to be able to have at least some photographs of a model room,” Radomski said.
From there, Radomski anticipated the first glimpse at the new designs in an actual Staybridge could occur by the summer of 2010.
