ForrestPerkins’ Cliff Tuttle and Mendy Huddleston Featured in ha+d
August 8, 2011 Leave a comment
Case Goods and Connectivity
By Katie Tandy
Keeping guests connected can lead to unique design needs.
In These Days of total connectivity, from laptops and cell phones to iPads and virtual meeting rooms, design versatility reigns supreme, allowing guests to work wherever they like, whenever they like. We have new case goods to thank for these possibilities. Mendy Huddleston, senior associate from ForrestPerkins in Dallas, explains that the primary trend in guest rooms is a connected modular type of case good where varying furniture pieces are combined, creating a sleeker aesthetic as well as more room for the guest to move around. “The roll-out or pull-out mechanisms of the desk allow for A) a nice clean room and B) the ability to have a double-sided dining or working area,” says Huddleston on her design work at the JW Marriott San Antonio. Huddleston also says that a focus on technology is vital in the design of new case goods and the spaces they fill—guests carry intricate systems of communication that they expect will work wherever they go without hindrance, whether within public spaces or their bedroom. “Data ports and electrical outlets within the desk component allow for connectivity,” she says. “Guests can plug in their laptop or video camera at the desk and it channels via cable to the TV, but we conceal that wire management with the furniture. It’s a focus on function, but it also creates a clean aesthetic.”
Cliff Tuttle, senior vice president at ForrestPerkins, echoes Huddleston’s comment. Especially in new builds, he explains, spaces are being transformed—the guest room is both a work area and a rest area—the boundaries of activities in each particular space overlap.
“We are finding that table heights in a lobby might be increasing from what they used to be because the lobby is being used for more social business activities,” he says. “People tend to be using the lobby spaces for food and beverage spaces as well. The space has to transcend, it has to move from day to night. Guests are using spaces differently now.”
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