Signage is simple and effective, whilst corridor design is clean and also shows clearly through carpet and lighting, where the bedroom doors are located.
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In addition to the restaurant and lounge areas the ground floor includes the conference and meeting rooms and a small well laid out gym area. There are several work stations in front of the reception desk to allow guests to access the web or otherwise work. Interestingly I have noticed an increasing trend for some travellers to use this kind of provision to book ahead their next hotel, as many people seem to now tour without a set itinerary, staying as long as they want in one place and then moving on, checking Tripadvisor and booking ahead via internet links.
Outside the meeting rooms is the lounge area and between it and the restaurant there is an overspill restaurant come breakout zone. At the edge of this is a coffee machine that dispenses free coffee all day to those who want it. The all day service from the restaurant is effective in allowing conference of meeting delegates to ‘graze’ so the lobby areas are always busy, but good design has enabled easy supervision from behind the counters as they have sight lines into most of the ground floor. The easy overview of these areas enables good security as well as effective service to be maintained.
The lift to the upper floors is immediately in front of reception and security for the guest is further enhanced by having the lift buttons key card locked. The lift also serves the parking garage, which is again secured through the use of a key card entry system.
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Bedroom corridors are neatly designed and are technically efficient as they include motion sensors as well as fire detection. This enables economical use of energy as they turn lights off when the corridor is empty. Of course this is a little like the old saying of ‘if a tree falls in the forest does anybody know...’ as an effective system will be invisible to the guest. This system uses infra-red detection units for fast working. As hotel corridor lighting is nearly always on all the time systems such as this promise much larger energy savings than just switching to low energy lamps.
Bedroom design provides a crisp, clean environment and one can see why this is so popular with both the travellers and the business person. Rooms are generously sized with large work surfaces and plenty of power sockets. There is plenty of drawer space for those who want to unpack, good hanging space in a wardrobe unencumbered by a safe, which is otherwise mounted in the drawer area of the desk unit at a sensible height for use (how annoyed I get by designers who position safes so close to the floor that you have to get down on hands and knees just to program them...)
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