Steeped in history and ultramodern
- Cutting-edge check-in with a venerable atmosphere
- Cleverly using available space, creating an atmosphere
- Fold up, fold down: Wall panels save space
- Teleletto 2 : Highlight in the family room
- Looking at its best with Loox
Today’s hotel guests no longer define “well-being in the hotel” on the basis of the room size, or the special services available, but instead it comes down to staying in an original, authentic place with an atmosphere: In buildings that live and breathe history, but which still deliver contemporary functionality and comfortable privacy. The Stuttgart-based company Success Hotel Group achieves just that with the opening of its twelfth establishment at the time, the ibis Styles in the historic old Roman city of Trier. In a prestigious neo-baroque building, the Alten Posthof am Kornmarkt (old postal centre), built in 1759 and with its current face completed in 1879, there are around 100 rooms available for guests from all over the world. Integrating the three-star Superior hotel into the partially listed existing building presented quite a challenge to the architects and designers. The interior design of the rooms, in particular, demanded innovative solutions: The double/twin and family rooms allude to the history of the city, and are welcoming spatial wonders despite their limited dimensions. And it was all made possible by a sophisticated interior design concept and flexible furniture with ingenious fittings supplied by Häfele. They meet the highest standards of functionality and user comfort.
Cutting-edge check-in with a venerable atmosphere
The ibis Styles was integrated into the historical existing building of the old Trier Posthof by the team at Jim Clemes Architekten, a local firm. Now that its core has been renovated, the listed four-winged complex with inner courtyard, now offers flexible space to restaurants, shops and offices. The location has become a vibrant hotspot on the centre of town and is just a short distance from Trier’s 2000-years old landmark, the Porta Nigra. At every turn visitors come face-to-face with the unique history of Germany’s oldest city. An experience extended into the building by Thomas Baumhauer with his firm, CD3D, based in Fehraltorf in Switzerland. The specialists of the Success Hotel Group decided on a design that taps into the history of the building and the city, and translated this into an exciting, contemporary interior architecture with appealing design and high-quality furniture. In the hotel lobby, warm natural colours employed in the wall and floor design, dark-coloured furniture and chandeliers in the form of a wheel specially commissioned for the hotel, lead the guest gently into the feeling of Romanesque antiquity. The reception desk in the shape of a stagecoach exudes a palpable sense of the romanticism of travel in past centuries.
Within the ibis Styles Trier, the old and the new combine to form an unconstrained harmonious symbiosis. So it should be no surprise that the former hotel keys have been replaced by a secure, modern and much more easy-to-use medium: An individually encoded and hotel-branded key card for the Häfele Dialock identification and locking system is the magical means giving the guests access to their temporary home. The contactless transponder technology of the Dialock WT100 wall terminal grants the visitor access to the main gate and the underground carpark. It also controls the hotel lifts. And Dialock DT400 door terminals are installed at the doors to the hotel rooms, the fitness facilities, as well as in the back office and service areas. So the key card – configurable for customised access authorisations – enables guests and staff to move about in the parts of the hotel relevant to them.
Cleverly using available space, creating an atmosphere
Our globalised way of living and working demands flexibility and mobility – including within hotels. To accomplish this architectural balancing act inside the listed existing building, it was necessary to draft an overarching interior concept, which ensured that spatial resources were managed intelligently. It had to meet the needs of tourists and business travellers alike, and success-fully amalgamate a residential atmosphere with professional multi-functionality.
The designers at Success Hotel Group worked closely together with Fritz Schlecht GmbH / SHL Objekteinrichtungen GmbH (interior manufacturers) from Altensteig and Häfele project advisors to develop flexible furniture, which delivers a high degree of convenience within a small layout plan. In this constellation, the three firms have formed a well-honed team for some time now. Numerous innovative interior concepts have already been achieved under its guidance. Ralf Schlecht emphasises the importance of this close partnership: “Innovative solutions have to be quickly identified and implemented, especially when you’re working within a narrow time frame and with a limited budget. It helps at this point to have an experienced operator, a highly committed manufacturer and specialist technicians and tradesmen all working closely and efficiently in the implementation of the ideas. As carpenters and interior fitters, we know precisely how a fitting needs to be made, in order to satisfy all our requirements. Häfele products deliver this quality on a very high level.”
Fold up, fold down: Wall panels save space
In view of this, a standardised, multi-piece wall panel was created for the Hotel ibis Styles Trier, which can be multi-functionally integrated into the best suited sequence for every room. The elements conceal an array of functions, but still remain so simple and initiative to use, that the guest is able to effortlessly use the furniture without any assistance or guidance. Functionality made fun!
With an integrated wardrobe, a six-foot mirror and the sturdy, fold-out luggage rack, the wall panel makes it easy to access luggage at a comfortable height, rendering the ubiquitous hotel wardrobe superfluous. Above the luggage storage space, there is a small fold-out shelf, with another panel segment actually containing a writing desktop. And once finished with, all the elements can be quickly folded back into the wall unit. These panels are full-powered media wall units, providing not only the connections necessary for laptops and smartphones, they also come equipped with a TV screen.
The appealing cabinet finish in a dark coloured, easily maintained wood look is accented with bright spring green sections, which are used as fold-out elements featuring catches made by Häfele. Often discretely and invisibly integrated, the numerous products from Häfele, such as extending coat hooks, high-grade flap fittings, easy-to-operate catches and durable luggage rack rails, make the wall panel a clever, coherent, robust multi-functional furniture item.
A separate highboard has smooth running push-to-open pull-outs providing additional storage space, along with a Häfele flush-mounted integrated built-in safe.
Teleletto 2 : Highlight in the family room
Two requirements, one item of furniture – based on this functional idea, the Teleletto 2 fitting system creates additional space and convenience in the family rooms. And this in the form of an intelligent multi-functional furniture item, which, in the blink of an eye, transforms from a cosy sofa into a comfortable double bed with an extra wide lying area. The interior fitters fashioned this quick-change artist to match the wall panel, and be perfectly in line with the design concept created for the ibis Styles in Trier. Anyone with a picture of a conventional fold-away bed in their head, will be truly amazed: The mobility of this furniture is down to the ultramodern, innovative hardware fittings from Häfele, far removed from conventional folding and sliding mechanisms. As the bed is folded out, the sofa disappears beneath the lying area. It is thanks to this special mechanism that Teleletto 2 ensures a perfect sitting height in sofa mode, and an optimum lying height when used as a bed. Equipped with a slatted frame and a comfortable mattress, this is a high-grade hotel bed that delivers the requisite standard of quality. Additional integral storage compartments, such as the illuminated wall unit, make this furniture ultra-flexible and usable in accordance with the individual’s specific needs. A family room is achieved with just a “normal” double bed, without any camp bed or additional effort. Friends or work colleagues travelling together can also comfortably spend the night here.
Looking at its best with Loox
The “Roman antiquity” design theme is also reproduced in the guest rooms, with warm earthy tones and candelabra in the form of a wheel for the basic lighting. An effective enhancement to the room light comes with the three versions of Häfele’s Loox LED lighting system. It provides for delicate, atmospheric nuances and places accents in specific room zones, in order to achieve a perfectly composed fully-integrated lighting effect. Integrated as an indirect lighting system into the wall panels, Loox LED strip lights create extra depth within the room, with the dimmable control ensuring that everyone can select the lighting level perfect for them. They emphasise the writing desk, the luggage rack and storage shelves. In contrast, recess mounted Loox LED spot lights brightly illuminate the entrance area.
Häfele Functionality imports a very high degree of flexibility and transformability to hotel furnishings – with a comparatively low amount of investments, and with a high level of future-proofness and budgeting certainty. With a number of diverse, intelligent and well-designed products, with its work for the ibis Styles in Trier the Nagold-based company has again proven itself to be an ideal and expert partner when it comes down to embarking on novel approaches to hotel furnishings.
Further information is available from
Häfele GmbH & Co KG, Postfach 1237,
D-72192 Nagold, Tel.: +49 7452 95-394,
Fax: +49 7452 95-1498,
E-Mail: ralf.biehl@haefele.de
Captions:
Photos: Häfele
Häfele is an internationally organized family owned and operated business with headquarters in Nagold, Germany. It was founded in 1923 and today serves the furniture industry, architects, planners, cabinet makers/joiners as well as dealers in over 150 countries around the world with furniture fittings and architectural hardware as well as electronic access control systems. Häfele develops and manufactures hardware fittings and electronic access control systems in six factories in Germany and Hungary. In the 2015 financial year the Häfele Group achieved exports of 79% with over 7,100 employees in 37 subsidiaries and numerous additional dealerships around the world and revenue of 1.3 billion Euros.
