Serviced Apartments As Hotels, Hotels As Serviced Apartments

Sarah Came, of GuestRevu.com, recently wrote about the narrowing gap between serviced apartments and hotels. Perhaps the biggest distinction is location. A hotel's rooms are all under one roof. Yet even on that score multifamily developers are beginning to set aside blocks of apartments to list on AirBnB. At any rate it does not seem too overreaching to imagine a time in the near future when serviced apartments and hotels are managed by the same companies, when the business consolidates around both.

Now the densely populated city presents special challenges. In New York rates are very high for both apartments and hotel rooms. The great mystery to me regarding New York apartments is the fact that for the most part they come unfurnished - the tenant is given the key and must then confront four bare walls. I cannot understand why architects do not devise all built-ins apartment which make moving in as easy and simple as checking into a hotel. Hotels can be similarly criticized. Though of course they drag various pieces of furniture into their rooms, more often than not its with an eye toward presenting a certain 'picture' rather than setting up a practical, efficient, pleasing and pleasant place to stay.

And so VRT gave itself this 'design brief' to answer the challenge: Using the least amount of space, devise a place equally suited as a hotel room or an apartment for an individual or couple. The solution turned out be a 'doubled' space whose two halves are mirror images in which the bathrooms interleave front to back and the King beds interleave top to bottom. Closets, kitchens, and study area are put to the sides while bathrooms and bedrooms run down the middle. The result feels perhaps more like what one expects on a luxury yacht. The concept is admittedly 'disruptive' of the normal box arrangement of living space with its all too obvious sharp and definite boundaries. Yet I think this design gives people what they really want and really like: A decent sized bathroom, a practical functional kitchen with full height European style refrigerator, a very spacious office area for books and computers, an elegant and cozy sleeping alcove with king size bed, and lots of drawer and shelf space to keep everything conveniently tucked away. As well VRT opts for an all in one European style washer-dryer over a dishwasher, which it locates in the kitchen. In the end VRT managed to accomplish all this in an area scarcely more than 200 sq ft and in the design shown, ceilings of just 8 feet.

Now one notes the promotion of the re-arrange-able micro-space, where walls move here and there transformer style so that if you are determined to do so, the apartment can be contorted into a banquet space capable of seating a dozen guests. VRT is opposed to such a scheme. Is it not better to have spaces dedicated to such services or simply go out to a restaurant during the few times per year as are occasioned ? As well the building lobby can even take up this role and probably should. Hotel lobbies and especially apartment lobbies suffer from the condition of being meant to be seen more than to be used, something which the boutique hotels are putting to right. And so to summarize VRT's approach, let the apartment or hotel room serve as a luxury space to deal with the practical aspects of individual life, let the lobby and other areas serve as luxurious social spaces, delightful convivial places conducive to and enhancing of enjoyable social occasions.