Boutique Design - October 2018 - 90

5 At the Park Inn by Radisson
Amsterdam City West, Rashid's
industrial design expertise and
love of pattern fuel unconventional
guestroom design solutions.
6 Seamless sensorial and
somatic experiences of light,
texture, materials, visuals and
space encourage a sense of
calm and wellbeing at this new
Park Inn in Amsterdam.

boutiquedesign.com october 2018

Karim rashid
Karim rashid inc.

him to achieve maximum impact while keeping costs in a realworld realm. He doesn't see any reason a tight budget should
equate with mediocre materials, poor quality or apathy towards
sustainability and the zing of a conceptual amuse bouche. So, for
example, in Ven, public areas feature biodegradable, wood-based
flooring with applied graphic patterns. Nor does he accept that
price-consciousness equates with a cookie-cutter art program.
Rashid brings visuals that spark curiosity into his mid-market
designs with solutions such as transferring digital images to sheets
of inexpensive polymer bathroom wall tiles, resulting in ethereal
shifts of color.
One of the cornerstones of this multidisciplinary designer's
revolutionary redo of midscale hotel interiors is his belief that,
whatever the traveler's budget, a hotel should improve the guest's
physical and mental wellbeing. He achieves that by weaving
comfort with seamless sensorial and somatic experiences of light,
texture, materials, visuals and space-factors that can be applied
across the spectrum of hotels.
Price point is not an excuse. According to Rashid, his projects are
never over budget-although he admits it helps to have designed
over 500 chairs along with a myriad of other products. "Because I
cooperate with some higher-end manufacturers on product design, I
can negotiate with them to bring down the cost of a light or a rug I
developed so it can be used in my design of a mid-level hotel. I point
out that doing so is good exposure for their brand."
Do clients buy into Rashid's populist thinking? Yes, says Eric
de Neef, executive vice president, global chief commercial officer
of Radisson Hotel Group. "Park Inn's attractiveness for both families and corporate travelers also offers us a competitive advantage amongst mid-range properties," he says.
RE-GENERATION
Since shaking up the European hostel scene more than 20 years
ago with its design-led properties, the Generator brand has
become almost a generic term for low-cost, high-style accommodation. Attention-grabbing materials and high-energy color
palettes give each hostel a distinct identity that appeals as much to
baby boomers as backpackers. Since the influx of $350 million via
its 2017 acquisition by Queensgate Investments from Patron
Capital, this determined group has restructured its entire operations across 12 European locales to compete more intensely with
mid-range hotels. Opened in October, the brand's first U.S. property, Generator Miami, put that theory to a major test. Unlike its
bunk-bedecked oldest siblings, this new property has more than

C O U R T E S Y O F K A R I M R A S H I D, I N C . ( PA R K I N N ) ; O S C A R VA l l E ( R A S H I D )

7 Inspirations from the Venn
diagram synchronize with the
fluidity of Rashid's designs.

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Boutique Design - October 2018

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