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Gensler: Lessons in Hospitality
by Jonathan Katz
Six design firms. Six environments.
A 600 sq.-ft. space. And a whole
lot of manufacturers. For the third consecutive
year, NeoCon West and Interior
Design magazine teamed up to present
the West Edge show and competition.
This year, Interior Architects, Griffin
Enright Architects, Hodgetts & Fung,
HOK, Langdon Wilson, and Gensler
participated, drawing an environment
- corporate, multi-functional, spa, retail,
education, or hospitality -to create
and a list of manufacturers with whom
to work.
One of the resulting showrooms
will be featured each week in officeinsight, between April 3 and May 15.
The 2005 Greater Los Angeles Homeless
Count found that more than 88,000
people in Los Angeles County were without
homes. 72,000 of these homeless
were without any type of shelter. 48,000
were located in the city of Los Angeles.
Approximately 39% of LA's homeless
are African-American.
These are not particularly heartening
facts and I didn't foresee that Gensler
would include statements to such effect
on the walls of its West Edge hospitality
environment.
The room, dedicated to
the homeless, contrasted the luxurious-
ness of an upscale hotel
or lounge and the downtrodden
depression of
Los Angeles street life
for an effect that was
at first jarring, and, ultimately,
quite resonating.
Comfortable and stylish
seating, facts about
homelessness, lights
from The Sky Factory,
silhouettes of homeless
people crossing the room - these
were some of the elements that served
to remind attendees of the problems that
lurked just outside the elegant confi nes
of LA Mart, throughout Los Angeles and
especially in downtown's skid row.
"[Homelessness], especially in LA,
is a topical issue and maybe one that
the design community should be thinking
about," said Alexis Dennis, a project
manager at Gensler and one part of
the fi rm's four-person West Edge design
team. "Trying to incorporate hospitality…
this became a metaphor."
The referenced metaphor was manifested
in the many layers of the hospitality
space. At the center, the core, was a
row of bronze-cushioned benches. Over
and around each were a roof and a set
of walls, giving users the impression of
being in an isolated, sheltered environment.
Sitting in the room, people could
be almost oblivious to the traces of
homelessness around them. There remained,
however, one unavoidable sign:
At the front of the room, thanks to Sona
Research (who set up a similar installation
in Interior Architects' corporate
setting, offi ceinsight 4.10.06), was an
interactive installation that featured fullscale
silhouettes of homeless people.
"We go to these beautiful lounges,
and bars, and hotel lobbies, and right
outside is this urban poverty," Ms. Dennis
said. "It's just the glass box." To illustrate
this point, the showroom was
literally encased in a glass box.
Statistics about homelessness were written on the
glass panes, so that once outside the
seating area, NeoCon West attendees
were faced with these often neglected
facts. "The exterior world is one of urban
poverty and the interior world is one of
glamour that could be any hotel, lounge,
or bar that we would spend time in,"
Ms. Dennis said of the link between the
room's design and message.
Gensler's showroom, designed by Ms.
Dennis, Hans Hurst, Eliza Costabel,
and Nicole Smith, had many interactive
elements. Once again, as it did in Interior
Architects' space, Sona Research
stole the show.
In the months leading up
to NeoCon West, Scott Snibbe, Sona's
video artist, took to the streets of Los
Angeles with a video camera. The footage
he captured was displayed throughout
the day on a projection screen in
the hospitality space. Not only were users
faced with the silhouettes of L.A.'s
homeless, but, as I found out, they could
fi guratively "wipe away" the problem with
a movement of their hand. Specifi cally,
when activated, a motion sensor turned
the images off. "It enforces the metaphor
that you can let it be there, but if you
choose to make it disappear it can disappear,"
Ms. Dennis said.
Another notable aspect of the room
was provided by The Sky Factory. As the
benefit of exposing employees to daylight
becomes more widely known and
accepted, I'm confident that this company's
products will become more and
more in common use. The lights, which
had a blue sky and clouds painted on
their tiles, resembled every aspect of an
actual skylight. The light they project is
the same as that used to treat Seasonal
Affective Disorder (SAD). "What it's doing
here is it's really giving you the illusion of
looking through a skylight, of looking at
a sky," a representative explained. They
are a great solution for an office that is renovating and doesn't
want to incur the cost of an actual skylight.
To intensify the contrast between the world of upscale hospitality
spaces and the street, Gensler loaded trash cans with
designer water.
"Whether it's an office environment or hospitality,
it's not enough anymore just to have a space that's well lit,
well ventilated and functional. You have to also understand the
client's need and the branding of the space," Ms. Dennis said
during the West Edge panel discussion.
During this discussion, she called on the design community
to look at the problem of homelessness around them. "These
people are part of the environment and the design community
needs to take an extra look at this in terms of some respectful
and creative solutions." She also said members of the design
community had expressed interest in working on a solution.
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