Hospitality Design - December 2016 - 99

> Community-Building

Landscape Architecture
Sometimes it's what's on the outside that
counts. As Kinder Baumgardner, president of
SWA Group, points out, landscape architecture

The Avenida de las Americas Plaza in Houston

> Scent Design

"tells a story and considers the resilience" in a
setting. While SWA's portfolio is as global as
it is robust, it's the work the firm is doing in
Houston that is reshaping a community.
Take SWA's reimagining of the city's
convention district with the walkable

140,000-square-foot Avenida de las Americas
Plaza project. Developers, hoteliers, and retail
and F&B operators are rushing to populate the
area festooned with gardens, shade trees, a safe
haven for migrating birds, and 10 artworks that
continue a nature and industry theme. Across
town, the renovated 160-acre Buffalo Bayou Park
"has redefined Houston," Baumgardner says of
the former derelict waterway. The two-mile-long
open space's native Texas species give the park
a sense of place, and two bridges that connect
surrounding neighborhoods offer improved
pedestrian accessibility and function as a beacon
in the city.
For Baumgardner, creating green spaces
is part of the larger social good, demonstrating
that beautiful design and sustainability are not
mutually exclusive. And he's not alone. Freshkills
Park in Staten Island, New York is transforming
the world's largest landfill into a 2,200-acre park,
opening in phases through 2036; the Hills on
Manhattan's Governors Island has converted the
former military base into a year-round recreation
destination; and firms including Seattle's GGN
continue to push the envelope with its landscape
work on the National Museum of African
American History and Culture in DC, the Lurie
Garden at Chicago's Millennium Park, and the
LEED Platinum Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
campus in Seattle.

South Congress Hotel's lobby

Sound, aesthetics, lighting, and texture-all
of which are vital to hospitality spaces-are
no comparison to our olfactory organs. "The
easiest and most powerful way to connect to
people is through smell," says Dawn Goldworm,
scent director for New York's 12.29, which
has provided signature fragrances for SIXTY
Hotels, the Quin in New York, CitizenM,
Thompson Hotels, and more. Guests want to feel
like they're at home, she says, and scent, more
than ever, can put them at ease.
Not to mention that smells trigger memories
and can serve as a loyalty generator for hoteliers.
Familiar aromas tug at our emotional center,
says Carly Fowler from New York-based Air
Aroma, a company whose clientele includes the
William Vale hotel in Brooklyn, Four Seasons
Hotel Chicago, and Austin's South Congress
Hotel. "It's also for ambiance, to enhance the
design," she adds. At South Congress Hotel,
for example, where a rustic Texas luxury style
reigns, the scent incorporates green, fresh,
and woody notes, linking guests not only to
the region but providing a comfort factor-a
subliminal message for the nose.

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