The hospitality industry is undergoing a period of significant changes. Many conference hotels and similar establishments disappeared after the pandemic. However, investments in luxury facilities, both in cities and naturalistic areas, are on the rise. The workers in the sector, especially the international ones, are redefining the traditional concept of five-star hotel with particular attention to customization, avoiding the unvarying monotony of hotel chains, and developing projects that aim to respect the unique characteristics of the hotels location. For this reason, the projects are often highly complex and challenging, carried out by a team of professionals who are demanded to be proficient not only in their own work fields but also in dealing effectively with every aspect of the design and construction process.
In this article, we will try to outline some projects we have been involved in, describing the lighting design strategy as well as the relationships between clients and designers.
A very different attitude to lighting has emerged in the hotel industry. To convey luxury, hotels no longer rely on the ostentatious display of opulence and iconic design objects, but rather focus on customization, domesticity and wellness. The goal is to make the guests feel as they are in a space tailored to their needs. Consequently, the lighting should adapt to their habits and moods, providing special settings in order to follow the rhythm of their daily life.
Domesticity and localness are also crucial: each hotel is conceived as a cell nestled in a fragment of the city or landscape, and the lighting project can no longer consist in a catalog of fixed solutions, as it was in the past. The environment affects every choice concerning the decorative objects and technical components, such as intensity, temperature, and type of light fixtures.
In recent years, the considerable investments in hotel industry have given us the opportunity to work in numerous high-end contexts. In our view, the common thread of these projects is the relationships developed between professionals. Projects of this sort include a wide variety of consultants, each one focused on working towards different goals but with shared by everyone: achieving the highest efficiency and quality. Managing communication and information exchange during a project could turn out to be a complex operation. To avoid getting lost in the workflow, organizational management is a significant part of our work, since it directly determines the project’s success.
The experience gained over the years has enabled us to work in important contexts today. Among the main ongoing projects, the worth mentioning ones are: the Castiglion del Bosco complex in the Sienese countryside, which originally belonged to Ferragamo family but it was recently acquired by an international family office; the Poltu Quatu Hotel on the French Riviera (Côte d’Azur), purchased for 70 million euros by Castello SGR, whose intention is to definitively turn Sardinia in a super luxury destination in the upcoming years; last but not least, the 6,300 square meter hotel on Via Ludovisi in Rome, which is the second property of Experimental Group in Italy.
Each project is strongly influenced by its location. The dialogue with the surroundings is evident in each part of the it, from architectural choices to lighting design: at Castiglion del Bosco, the connection with agricultural tradition greatly influences the lighting, especially the outdoor one, for which the most important thing is to balance the amount of light; in Sardinia, thanks to the morphology of the hotel and residences, the light is often a contemporary reinterpretation of what were once fishing villages; the urban context of the hotel on Via Ludovisi in Rome allow to use European as well as international styles and elements instead.
Attention to the characteristics of the location and the needs of the client have always guided our work. The projects developed for Il Salviatino Hotel, Palazzo Fiuggi and Grotta Giusti are closely related to the existing architecture as well as the history of each place. Il Salviatino is a Renaissance villa in the Florentine hills, which played a key role in the history of the city; Palazzo Fiuggi is a villa built more than a hundred years ago, which soon became a landmark for the area; Grotta Giusti is a historical Thermal Spa named after the poet Giuseppe Giusti, the building’s first owner.
Il Salviatino Hotel embodies an idea of refined luxury, closely tied to the relationship between architecture and nature. The lighting project for the common areas focuses on the two perspective axes of the entrance emphasizing the Renaissance architecture, but at the same time it engages in a dialogue with the vegetation inside, which breaks the continuity of the architectural space. The lighting design strikes a balance between these two elements: the architecture is marked by a severe lighting, following the Renaissance modularity, while the vegetation is marked by a more fluid lighting that has the power to soften the angular lines of the former.
The project for Palazzo Fiuggi, an international icon of wellness, was set up after investments by Forte Village group, who turned it into a top-level facility in the hospitality and medical spa treatments industry. The client expressed the desire to highlight the facade as the most important element of the entire lighting project, considering the building’s significance to the neighborhood. The light emphasizes the difference between the rusticated stones of the first level and the smooth plaster of the second one, as well as the cornice with decorations under the eaves. Finally, to confer greater plasticity, we worked on the shadows cast by the central body slightly projecting from the rest of the building, where the main entrance is located.
