Transcript: Episode 234: Model Room Mayhem
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[00:00:00] Susan Barry: This is Top Floor with Susan Barry, episode 234. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/234.
[00:00:14] Narrator: Welcome to Top Floor with Susan Barry. This weekly podcast ride up to the top floor features tangible tips and excellent stories from the experts and characters who elevate hospitality. And now your host and elevator operator, Susan Barry.
[00:00:32] Susan Barry: Welcome to the show. Lori Mukoyama is design principal and global hospitality leader at Gensler, where she helped shape hospitality projects across regions, including Chicago, London, Brazil, Tokyo, Dubai, and beyond. Lori began her career in boutique retail design before expanding into large-scale mixed-use developments, master planning, and global hospitality strategy with a passion for the 15-feet and down human experience of space. Lori focuses on the tactile, emotional, and cultural details that shape how people experience hotels from the doorknob to the lobby to the guest room desk. Today, we are gonna talk about the evolution of hospitality design, global brands versus local culture, and the future of guest experience. But before we jump in, we need to answer the call button.
Call button rings…
The emergency call button is our hotline for hospitality professionals who have burning questions. If you would like to submit a question, you can call or text me at (850) 404-9630. The emergency call button is brought to you by Cayuga Hospitality Consultants. Cayuga is a highly concentrated organization of the industry's best-connected consultants across multiple disciplines. Members are former senior executives who now work independently on projects worldwide. Learn more at cayugahospitality.com. That is c-a-y-u-g-a hospitality.com.
Okay, Lori, today's question was submitted by Reba. I love this question. I think it's so funny. Reba asks, why does hotel carpet make me feel like I'm going to have a stroke? Why such dramatic patterns? What do you think? I know you know the answer. Tell us.
[00:02:43] Lori Mukoyama: I love this question because carpet is designed always by us, by the patterning. It's always bespoke and it's very unique and it is very busy because people spill things on the carpet and do not treat it quite like it's their own home. So unfortunately, things happen. Furniture moves, people drag things, people spill their coffee, which is why there's a lot of pattern. Although these days the trend is going to more quiet. Tone down movement underneath their bed, and often you'll see a combination of hard surfaces with that area rug to make it more updated and more like your own home.
[00:03:21] Susan Barry: I'm staying in a hotel with that right now, and it's very cool. It looks cool and it feels good under the feet.
[00:03:28] Lori Mukoyama: That's our goal, and I think that's the movement of the future. So hopefully this guest won't experience that moving forward.
[00:03:35] Susan Barry: Well, you started in boutique retail design and now co-lead Global Hospitality at Gensler. How did that evolution happen?
[00:03:45] Lori Mukoyama: That happened because when I started my design career, everyone was really focused on workplace. But for me, I wanted to create spaces that my family and my friends could experience. And at that time of 21, I loved to shop. So that's where it started. But then my career really followed my passions from then retail to restaurants. You know it to bars to hotels, to larger spaces, master planning, and more uniquely now to even fitness. And what's so different now is that sometimes my passion comes from my projects. So we're designing Studio three in San Diego and Austin, and I actually was not an avid yoga goer before and now I am passionate about hot intense yoga because of my project.
[00:04:30] Susan Barry: Okay. So not for nothing, but let's have an aside about hot yoga. Really quick. I love to do yoga, but the hot of it all, I am not so sure about why hot yoga.
[00:04:41] Lori Mukoyama: Hot yoga is for one reason, and that is to sweat and to get the most calories out.
[00:04:47] Susan Barry: Okay. That makes all the sense in the world. And I'm gonna do a hard pass on hot yoga. Thank you very much for someone who hears designer and thinks about all the different types of designers that there are. They maybe don't really know what it means. How would you describe what you actually do day to day from the doorknob to the lobby?
[00:05:10] Lori Mukoyama: So I am a licensed interior designer, and I want us, Susan, to picture a huge white box. And in this white box is your empty hotel. So there are no walls, there's no elevators, there's no rooms. So what my team and I do is we create everything from the door handles when you walk in, to the beautiful reception area desk, to the flow, to your guest sreams, to the carpet, like you were saying, under your feet. Everything, even when your head hits the pillow. We design all of that. So we create the experience that's both physical and I wanna say emotional in a hotel.
[00:05:44] Susan Barry: So how does that relate to the idea that you taught me about 15 feet and down? What does that mean and why is that sort of where the magic happens?
[00:05:54] Lori Mukoyama: I love focusing on that human experience, and I am very lucky to work with great architects, but from far away, I think what gets people the most excited about is when they're walking into the hotel. So is that door wood and carved, or does it slide open? What does the sound and the smell that you experience? What is the mood? You know, you'll see me if we walk into a hotel together, I'm gonna actually maybe touch the floor. Look behind the drapes, actually flip over some chairs because the 15 feet and down is what I think the human experiences and what shapes our whole identity and our feeling in a space. So I love it.
[00:06:34] Susan Barry: So when you said the thing about the door, it just reminded me of something, which is, as I said, I'm staying in a hotel right now and there's a pocket door for the bathroom. Are there things that you think people enjoy in hotels that they wouldn't like in their homes or vice versa?
[00:06:53] Lori Mukoyama: This is a great question. When we did the St. Regis in Chicago, we designed everything about the view. So the concept was the water and the lake and the view outside. So the walls all pivot in the bathroom to open up from your bathtub or your shower to see outside. So I would say that in this instance, it's perfect and beautiful because I would love to take a bath or a shower and see the glass and see the water, but in my house, I do not.
[00:07:20] Susan Barry: You don't want the mailman observing that.
[00:07:22] Lori Mukoyama: I do not need that same level of transparency.
[00:07:26] Susan Barry: Understood. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. As a Global Hospitality Leader at Gensler. I know that you experience hospitality all over the globe. You just got back from Mexico City, the best place in the world. What are some of the biggest international, regional differences that you're noticing right now?
[00:07:48] Lori Mukoyama: You know, in the US we are seeing urban markets with historic renovations and tax credits really still pushing forward. I don't know if all your reader or your listeners know this, but a new building takes actually 10% longer to open. So that's why we're still seeing a lot of these tax credits and stories coming to life in older buildings.
[00:08:09] Susan Barry: Oh, that seems counterintuitive to me that it would take longer.
[00:08:13] Lori Mukoyama: It does. It takes that much longer. So we save a little bit of money, we get a little bit of extra credit, but then we're also revitalizing districts when we do these types of historic renovation projects.
[00:08:23] Susan Barry: That is so cool.
[00:08:24] Lori Mukoyama: Right? So now let's go to Mexico. Let's go to Latin America. And resorts are all the rage and everything. There is very open circulation. You can feel the wind and smell of the air, and tents are becoming canvases and wooden tubs there. Hand carved local wooden tubs are a thing.
[00:08:45] Susan Barry: Okay, good to know. Adding to my Christmas list. Carry on.
[00:08:50] Lori Mukoyama: One more region I have to travel to is let's go to Asia and right. In Japan, it's very luxury. It's very artistic as an experience, or very artisanal, but with a high focus, as you can only imagine, on front of house and back of house efficiencies and servicing. So a lot happening behind the scenes, and they're looking at this operationally, but then focusing on these artistic experiences upfront.
[00:09:19] Susan Barry: Interesting. So when you're looking at branded hotels and you have those global brand standards like, I don't know, a Grand Hyatt prototype or whatever. How do you balance that? Like, here are the rules for building our hotel with those variations in culture, Rio, Chicago, London, like those are all distinctly different places. Can you put the same prototype in each of those cities and what do you do to make them feel indigenous?
[00:09:52] Lori Mukoyama: You know, the most exciting part of my job and our job is that we are able to create spaces all over the world. And brand standards to us is like bowling. So you know the direction you're going in. With a Grand Hyatt, it's gonna be grand, right? But I'm a child bowler, so I have the bumpers on each side. But brands are great because like Hyatt, they're expecting you to infuse the local culture and knowledge and we're just really fortunate at Gensler that we have 60+ offices, so we have a lot of partners and even though our hospitality practice is not in every office. We have design partners everywhere. And so for example, with that Grand Hyatt in San Paulo, our concept was art through nature. But the city is like a rainforest in combination of a very dense urban location. And so when you walk in, the lobby has a great tree bark inspired wall that's made of gold. Yeah, gold pieces that peel out. And then there's a canopy of overscale, 10 foot lights that become almost this canopy of trees above you with the leaves. So we were really able to gain inspiration for this location because we had local partners and just a great brand to work with.
[00:11:11] Susan Barry: Oh, that sounds like a place that I need to add to my bucket list for sure. How do you think that, I don't know if this is the right way to say this, but the increase in remote work, more digital nomading. It's like I'm doing right now. How does that impacted or changed the way that you design a hotel room like you are looking at a hotel room behind me right now?
[00:11:37] Lori Mukoyama: I sure am and life has changed. Life has changed for the better. We're seeing people now, they go on vacation with their family, they can leave on a Friday and then work from their hotel room like you're doing on a Friday in your hotel room, but then they can enjoy the weekend. So the desk is what I have seen change and instead of the desk facing the wall like it used to, and then you're seeing my unmade terrible bed behind me, which is embarrassing. We're flipped. We're flipping that conversation and that visual so that it's actually now facing out towards the room and we're creating really beautiful backdrops for you now. Whether it's soft lighting, whether it's a higher back with an acoustical material so that when you're on a call you sound good and look good. We're really seeing this dusk area change to be more multifunctional.
[00:12:25] Susan Barry: Well, you've already revealed a bunch of cool things that I think all hotels need to be thinking about, but I bet that you've got more. So what are a few themes in your global design forecast that are shaping hospitality right now?
[00:12:42] Lori Mukoyama: Yeah. We're seeing that hotels are revitalizing the communities that they call home, and one of my favorite examples is the Signia by Hilton in Atlanta, because this became a project that bridge historic neighborhoods and the growing west side district in one building. And from a design point of view, it created some southern hospitality where you can have a great portico share and a great lobby bar that opens up and to the community, but then also has a great garden terrace and lawn.
[00:13:15] Susan Barry: It's so beautiful. I was just there. I love it so much.
[00:13:18] Lori Mukoyama: I'm so glad because it's not only just a beautiful space, but it also has a positive influence on your surrounding areas. And fun fact, it actually was part of a $2 billion economic growth and impact on the city. So it does good. Yeah, design does great things.
[00:13:36] Susan Barry: I love that hotel. I live in Atlanta and actually will be attending the Hunter Hotel Investment Conference there in a couple of weeks, so I'm excited to check it out again. I've went for the first time very recently and was blown away. So now I'll be looking for more of your signature touches.
[00:13:57] Lori Mukoyama: I love that. Yes. Enjoy the lobby and the bar, the indoor outs. Another thing that's really interesting now around the world is that offline is our new luxury. So I will ask my design partners, what is your favorite hotel? And they actually won't name a brand anymore. They'll attach it as an experience to whatever they're doing. So they'll say, I went skiing. I went to a great theme park hotel. I was at a wellness hotel. I was at a music hotel, and right now we're actually designing a bathhouse in Chicago. And so this is a little bit of an example at a smaller, more intimate scale, but the sauna is now this new social space and the new lobby bar, and we're sitting. We love this. We're, we're seeing wellness with socialization. We're seeing that health is the new wealth, but you're obviously not bringing your iPhone into the sauna with you.
[00:14:54] Susan Barry: Excellent. That is a good point. I'm just trying, I had like a coffee appointment today and I'm wondering like, are people gonna make sauna appointments? Like, hey, can you grab a quick sauna and talk through our deal memo?
[00:15:08] Lori Mukoyama: I think we'd get a lot more done.
[00:15:10] Susan Barry: I think you're probably right. We like to make sure that our listeners come away from every single episode of Top Floor with some specific practical tips to try either in their businesses and their personal lives. So for the hotel owners and developers who are listening, what do you think is one design decision that has an over-the-top or outsized impact on how the guest experiences the hotel?
[00:15:41] Lori Mukoyama: I would encourage every developer or owner listening to really give your designers and your team time to create a concept and a story for your space. And sometimes I think with AI or quick renderings, people are really asking for fast design, but the concept really informs our plan. Like we were talking about when you walk in, our experience, our materials, the type of restaurant, even the marketing that's gonna be seen from people. So I would encourage them to give the team a little bit of time to co-create that concept story to impact that guest experience.
[00:16:19] Susan Barry: I could not agree more. When as someone who used to sell hotels and work on property, having a story to tell makes your job easier and also more pleasant. So listen up, developers do what she says. Okay? So for designers earlier in their careers, how do you recommend stretching beyond their sort of initial niche the way that you did? Like is it just a matter of doing it or is there a more formal process that they should go through?
[00:16:58] Lori Mukoyama: I would embrace the uncomfortable and seek out opportunities that you're maybe not naturally good at. And when you do that, then master those projects or those opportunities from the beginning to end and be all in. And honestly, Susan, you have such an energy and a passion for what you do. We can feel it through what the way you speak and you talk even before we met. And I think people will also feel your energy and the designer's passion as they are all in.
[00:17:30] Susan Barry: Interesting. Well, if someone is designing a space right now, how can they think more holistically about lifestyle? So not just the building or the walls, but how people move through their entire day.
[00:17:48] Lori Mukoyama: So we always start our concepts with a guest target or a muse. And it makes it very aspirational and we dig into their life. So when we design Draftking, we dig in.
[00:18:01] Susan Barry: And find their dirty secrets on Facebook.
[00:18:02] Lori Mukoyama: Exactly. We do. We have a photo usually. But you know, so DraftKings was a great bar located at Wrigley Field. It's a ballpark. And so that Muse was a guy that lives in the neighborhood. Early 30s, a little beard, baseball hat, but his seat was a big leather chair, almost recliner, maybe pivots. The top of it has a stone top so that you could put your beer on it. That's local, right? Very different than our muse. When we were designing for the Palmer House in Chicago, it's a historic building. Ladies who lunch, armies was a woman that was coming in after a day of shopping. Her chair had fringe on the bottom. Her chair is my chair. Her chair is curved. It's really beautiful. It's got woven detailing in it, and it has space for my purse or space for her bags. So really starting with our guest and our will help us in moving through our entire day and looking into space totally differently.
[00:19:02] Susan Barry: I love the way that you gave them each their signature chair. Now I'm gonna wanna think about what is my chair? It's probably something from the thrift store from 1958.
[00:19:15] Lori Mukoyama: I love that.
[00:19:17] Susan Barry: Well, we have reached the fortune telling portion of our show, so you have to predict the future, and then we will see if you got it right. What is a prediction that you have about how hotel brand standards will grow and evolve over the next decade or so?
[00:19:35] Lori Mukoyama: I'm hoping that hotel brand standards will become more multi-generational for travel. So gone are the days, I think of just two people always traveling together, but now it could be the two people, their child, a parent, a cousin and aunt. Looking at a little bit more versatility for us in our guest rooms, so some of the benefits of the Airbnb, but with the hotel standards and amenities, we're seeing that the only new real invention for these guests are the connecting doors in a guest room. We can do better than that. So is it the unique room types? Is it open spaces to hang out? Is it bathroom configurations? And let's rethink the TV across from the bed.
[00:20:19] Susan Barry: I love it. I mean, does anyone watch the TV across from the bed? Although I will say in a hotel is about the only time I do watch tv, and I just try to find a law and order SVU Marathon.
[00:20:33] Lori Mukoyama: Oh my gosh. Amazing.
[00:20:36] Susan Barry: If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about how hospitality projects are designed today, what would you change?
[00:20:45] Lori Mukoyama: I would love to wave the magic wand of sustainability and eight out of 10 people actually today prioritize sustainability in their built environments. So it's time for hospitality to move forward. The biggest problem is that we have innovation issues, right? So material innovations come with custom fabrics that are not durable enough that are also sustainable. So we really need a little bit more innovation when it comes to this, as well as with our architecture and our engineering friends, because hotels aren't occupied the whole day. So how can we reduce some of that energy and that waste during our off hours? And I think here we could learn from our workplace friends.
[00:21:28] Susan Barry: Interesting. Do you think that the innovation problem is lack of demand, lack of regulation, creating that demand or something else that I am not coming up with real quick?
[00:21:45] Lori Mukoyama: No, it is because we're not demanding it. I think when hotel operators demand sustainability. We will all follow suit. And actually at Gensler, we have standards for our library. So you actually can't come in unless you have a certain level of sustainability in mind, but especially as we do everything bespoke, we need to just keep moving to the next level.
[00:22:07] Susan Barry: Interesting. All right, listeners, this is an opport business opportunity for you to create durable, sustainable fabrics for sure. Okay folks, before we tell Lori goodbye, we are going to head down to the loading dock where all of the best stories get told.
Elevator voice announces, “Going down.”
[00:36:28] Susan Barry: The loading dock is brought to you by Hive Marketing. At Hive, we specialize in business-to-business marketing and communications for the hospitality industry. Working with hospitality brands, operators, owners, and vendors to create content and campaigns that keep you top of mind outside the sales cycle. Visit hive-marketing.com for more information. That's hive, like a bee hive-marketing.com.
Okay. Lori, what is a story you would only tell me on the loading dock?
[00:23:04] Lori Mukoyama: Only for you on the loading dock.
[00:23:07] Susan Barry: We won't tell anybody else. I'll keep it a secret.
[00:23:09] Lori Mukoyama: Perfect. So everyone thinks, oh, you design hotels, it can be very glamorous and fancy and sometimes it is. The opening could have a red carpet. I've had ice sculptures, I've had sushi. One of a kind chefs. What they won't tell you is that when you're doing a model room, so a model room for those listeners, as we all know is created ahead of time and we actually design a couple rooms. You can walk through them. The CEO likes to do it before we stamp it out 500 to a thousand times, we review the model room. Well, the last model room I was in Florida. It was hot. It was humid. The air conditioning was broken in the warehouse I was in, and I was up till 12:00 AM painting the walls, ironing the towels myself with my partner, filling soap dispensers, realizing that the tabletops were actually mounted upside down. And my favorite was filling the pillowcases for the decorative pillows that weren't filled enough. With tissue paper from the bathroom. So I would say that no one knows the unglamorous moments that you go through as a designer to get something approved. And that's why I think being passionate about what we do really comes to life from those moments until the red carpet opening.
[00:24:33] Susan Barry: This sounds like a good potential show for HGTV and call it model room. A little film, all of the disasters that happen when you're trying to get a model room approved. Lori Mukoyama, thank you so much for being here. I know that our listeners got a spark of inspiration and I really appreciate you riding with us to the top floor.
[00:24:57] Lori Mukoyama: Thank you, Susan.
[00:24:59] Susan Barry: Thank you for listening. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/234. Jonathan Albano is our editor, producer, and all-around genius. He even wrote and performed our theme song with vocals by Cameron Albano. You can subscribe to Top Floor on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen, and your rating or review will go a long way in helping us give you more of what you like.
[00:25:35] Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Top Floor podcast at www.topfloorpodcast.com. Have a hospitality marketing question? Reach us at 850-404-9630 to be featured in a future episode.