1 Hotel Miami Beach

Material Matters

I have been wanting to share the interior of this hotel since we returned last month. If you were to ask me what my style is, this would be it. I’m becoming more and more minimal as I age and have decided I need less and less around me to make me happy.

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I always enjoy it when people go to my website and see the projects I have worked on and say, “I see you really like color.” For me, that means I’m doing my job. My projects are a reflection of my client’s homes and businesses, design aesthetics, tastes, styles, colors, products, and demographic we are trying to capture. Not mine. Working with clients gives me the opportunity to explore a variety of design aesthetics, color and styles different from my own personal tastes. I like to say,” I love coloring with all the crayons in the box, but I want to come home to something visually quiet.” This hotel is the silence and texture I crave.

Designed with eco-friendly principles in mind, the hotel is LEED certified and built with reclaimed materials throughout. Both the hotel and operations are designed and run on the best sustainability practices by focusing on environmental impact, recycled building materials, local food sourcing, and things like water and air filtration systems. Even the hangers are made from 100% post consumer recycled materials. This philosophy touches every detail in the hotel like no plastic keys to enter your room and all natural bath products. They even use recycled chalkboards in the room for notes and doodles to cut down on paper waste.

Not only is the mindful approach practiced in the the physical nature of the building and daily practices of sustainability, but also in the spiritual. The hotel hosts full moon celebrations every month to celebrate the changing of the tides, cosmos and energy with the rise of the full moon, as well as, once a month observing something called Dark Sky. That evening, they dim the lights in the lobby and illuminate the area with candles to raise awareness of global brightening and consumption. Reminds me of Bali’s full moon celebrations and day of silence and darkness offering respect to our planet.

The colorless interior, white upholstery, organic and textural materials, concrete, stone, and wood provide visual silence and a place to rest the busy mind. One of the other spectacular things about this hotel is the lighting.

Little nooks and niches for chatting in hotels are a favorite of mine. It allows us to somewhat hide out yet still be somewhat in the middle of things. You get to decide who you want to chat with and how social you want to be. These are spaces that allow us opportunities to chat with those passing by but also discourages them from chatting with us, if we don’t want them to. Often people respect those in a niche or off by themselves, as if they are having a private, not-to-be-disturbed conversation. For me, it’s a non-committal space in a public environment, meaning, I can be around the action and hear the buzz of the lobby and see people, but not be forced into a social setting, if I choose not to be. Sometimes we just want to be a spectator and not a participant. Maybe we’ll be a participant the next night. 😉

The restaurant was closed while we were there, which wasn’t a bad thing for these photos. 😉 Notice all the lighting in the shelves, the cocktail tables, and that custom light fixture over the bar. Can’t wait to go back during the Dark Sky night and have dinner and drinks here by candlelight.

Little details everywhere: barnacles growing on the corners of walls, the heart shape engraved in the door, the weathered wood halls and doors to the rooms, candles and branches everywhere, and the entry to the gym which is incredible itself. As both a residential and commercial designer, it’s always interesting to see how other designers try to conceal or divert the eye away from mechanicals in commercial interiors. *rolls eyes* They are a necessary evil in our projects and seeing how they visually blocked them here with the candles and branches, yet kept it open for proper air flow, is probably something no one else would have noticed but another commercial designer.

The art installations on site also raise awareness and conversation about the philosophy the hotel carries and highlights what we are doing to our planet. These are all recycled items from the ocean. Recycled tv and computer monitors depict animals living inside, as if one day, that might be the only way we will see and remember some of them, because of the destruction we have caused. If it weren’t so sad, this whale might actually be beautiful. A closer look shows the random trash that went into making it. We must do better.