Hospitality Design Awards Archives | Page 2 of 2

Virgin Hotels Nashville

The Virgin Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee is situated on the edge of Nashville’s famed Music Row and is positioned between Vanderbilt, the rapidly transforming Midtown neighborhood, and the burgeoning Gulch district. Designed in partnership with Hastings Architecture, our charge was to create a lifestyle hotel that conveyed the character of Nashville to its out-of-town guests, while also creating a living room style destination for local Nashvillians.

Albeit on the edge of a famous district, the site lacked substantial foot traffic to support our diverse program. We saw this as a challenge to draw in Nashville’s downtown hustle via an architectural solution. That solution laid in activating the entire length of building frontage with a series of different indoor/outdoor experiences. The hotel borders two public streets, Division Street and Music Square West. The visual prominence of this intersection was ample reason to extend the Commons Club outdoors, further activating the street. This exterior extension features lush plantings which create intimate seating groups along the perimeter while a large, communal tree table occupies the center the space. The outdoor space is connected to the interior through an oversized guillotine door that allows for a double sided, indoor/outdoor bar. Moving south on Music Square West, exterior café seating, the main hotel lobby, porte cochere, and large covered canopy for rooftop elevator queueing and inclement weather valet service further enlivens Music Square West. From the Commons Club terrace heading west down Division Street, an elevated dining terrace provides a perched spot for people watching on the street below. The Gathering Level above hosts an outdoor terrace running the length of the Meeting Room, while the Ballroom opens onto a large rooftop event lawn.

The hotel sits atop a topographic highpoint, with the upper levels of the hotel having commanding views in all directions. The rooftop experience is defined by a rooftop bar, infinity edge pool, and lower roof terrace. The rooftop bar is narrow and features floor to ceiling glass with dichotomic views of rolling green hills beyond historic Vanderbilt to the West and the ever-changing dramatic downtown skyline to the East. The lower roof terrace reorients the view corridor and connects guests with an unobstructed view down Demonbreun Street to downtown.

The exterior façade is inspired from the sentiments prevalent throughout early 20th century urban utilitarian structures , in particular large masonry publishing houses found throughout historic Nashville. The modern interpretation is expressed through an ordered façade of manganese iron-spot Norman brick and warehouse style, large-scale windows. Working off the light drawn through the large, scale windows, the interior volumes are as equally expressive as the exterior and create a blurred threshold between the two. By pulling the iron spot brick and blackened steel of the exterior aesthetic into the building, the design weaves the vibrancy of the street and the warm, interior experiences together into a cohesive and immersive guest experience.

The Summit House at Balsam Mountain

Balsam Mountain Preserve is a completely reimagined private club community in Sylva, N.C. When Balsam Mountain was developed in the early 2000s, plans called for a signature Arnold Palmer-designed course in the picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains, equestrian center, pool/fitness center and overall focus on conservation considering more than 3,000 of the 4,500 acres were set aside as conservation easement.

After Balsam Mountain fell into financial troubles several years ago and changed owners, the new group kept the eco-development mindset but embraced an entirely new vision for the club’s future amenities/lifestyle after consulting our firm and land planner. Indeed, rather than borrowing yet another blueprint from traditional clubhouse design, our firm conceived a contrarian clubhouse design inspired by the property’s pristine mining history roots.

The innovative end result is a cluster of connected cottages and buildings called Doubletop Village that now serves as Balsam Mountain’s new “clubhouse” facility. The buildings are arranged as rural industrial structures constructed over time and recently renovated for our purpose – all organized around outdoor spaces with striking views of the surrounding Double Top mountains and newly designed Palmer Practice Park that goes with the club’s championship layout.

Among the popular new creative clubhouse attractions are Summit House restaurant and the Mine Tavern, featuring indoor-outdoor spaces that open to a shared courtyard of natural landscape with an outdoor fireplace and regional craft beers on tap. If anything, Balsam Mountain epitomizes the future of clubhouse design, where integrated outdoor courtyards, terraces, and lawns effectively replace and become the “lobbies and corridors” of the traditional large clubhouse structures of old.

The site overlooking the practice park, golf course, and the Blue Ridge Mountains beyond gave the firm design the inspiration it needed for the clubhouse. To thoroughly enjoy the mountains, one has to appreciate the outdoors and focus on the views in tandem with the experience within.

To achieve this new sense of place, the team “blew up” the clubhouse into multiple structures, leaving an outdoor courtyard of boulders, native plants and an outdoor fireplace in place of the traditional lobby. Around this courtyard are the other club components that efficiently serve the golf functions as well as provide attractive gathering spaces for members and guess.

To further enhance the viewscapes and spaces, these elements are scaled to allow them to expand and contract by opening and closing movable glass walls to the dining porch and indoor/outdoor bar. The first building houses the Summit House restaurant with its wine cellar and tasting room, and the General Store, which functions as the pro shop.
Meanwhile, the second structure houses the Mine Tavern bar, administration, and locker rooms. Together these spaces have become the new center of energy for the club community, places where resident members can enjoy an entire day.

Biggerstaff Brewing Co.

The name of the client’s establishment was inspired by family that once owned a farm. To recall this history, curated pieces and finishes rooted to southern farmhouses are included throughout. To tie in the rich history of the building, much of the shell architecture was preserved. Original concrete masonry units were left exposed and clear-sealed, and the building’s original steel structure was also left exposed and unpainted. Aspects of the raw, industrial shell were pulled into the finishes and furnishings in the space. A concrete masonry unit backed banquette was used as a division between the main dining area and the coffee bar; waxed steel and powder coated metals were used in the millwork and in furniture details throughout. Wood was used for the bar counter surfaces and faces as well as in the trim-work to bring some warmth into the space.

The biggest challenge with this program was cohesively combining the different program requirements. We did this by using furniture as subtle spatial divisions: a combined host-stand and banquette serve to divide the main dining from the coffee lounge area, while large standing-height communal tables divide the brewery bar and kitchen expo from customer areas.

Per client request, we needed to create high visibility from the dining spaces to the kitchen and brewery. We accomplished this by building a large opening with an expo table at the transition from the dining area to the kitchen and installing large windows into the brewery.
By keeping spatial divisions minimal, we achieved an open, fluid, and dynamic layout. This, with highly curated finishes combining southern farmhouse inspired decor with a historically rich and industrial building shell, creates a truly unique brewpub experience.

Elliott’s

Office of Design approached the biggest programmatic hurdle of dividing the space into a restaurant and marketplace by creating an entry vestibule for the public. This allows each entity to operate independently of each other as needed. The layout also grants each space direct access to the kitchen. This allows the marketplace easy access to preprepared foods and to-go orders.

The addition of the private dining mezzanine created an opportunity to design a more intimate bar underneath. The lesser ceiling height over the bar makes this area of the restaurant feel cozier, which is compounded by the use of warm, natural wood finishes. When customers are seated at the bar, its circular shape places emphasis on the bartenders and on the back-bar display, which highlights the restaurant’s carefully curated beverage program.

Beyond the programmatic goals of the space, Elliott’s wanted to create an environment that felt elegant but comfortable to encourage their customers to stay a while. The desire for dining in comfort is mirrored in the restaurant’s cuisine, which: “celebrates the traditional flavors of Southern food while providing modern twists on classic dishes”.

Comfort and modern elegance coexist harmoniously in the restaurant. A nod to traditional beadboard has been upgraded by using sleek, vertically oriented planks painted in a regionally popular soft green. Greens and blues dominate the color palette to create a soothing and calming environment. Creamy whites applied to much of the upper half of the dining room’s volume make the space feel airy and bright where it felt rustic and dim previously. The introduction of a few splashes of color emphasizes the dichotomy between a traditional southern aesthetic and modern sensibilities, much like the restaurant’s cuisine.

Traditional picture molding creates a calming, simple motif along the walls and calls to mind many a southern formal dining room. The molding perfectly frames sound absorbing wallcoverings and playful wall sconces which create atmospheric, subtle lighting and serve as functional décor. Large, light-weight pendant fixtures help to humanize the scale of the high-ceilinged dining room while breaking up the more repetitive design elements used throughout.

Environmental comfort is a consideration in more than just the finishing of the space. Sound levels were a huge focus when planning the layout and selecting materials. We created barriers for sound by using partitions and level changes with biophilic elements to muffle noise between tables. Drapery is used for visual interest but the use of a dual-purpose sun-obstructing and sound-absorbing sheer fabric along the existing storefront helps reduce noise pollution and prevent unnecessary heat gain and glare. Drapery is also used to privatize the mezzanine area and to add color to the space.