hospitalitystyle.com

(May 2010) posted on Tue May 25, 2010 EDT

If you want to animate a cavernous hotel atrium, EDG’s Jennifer Johanson has one word for you: Kinetics.

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By Mary Scoviak

When I caught up with EDG Interior Architecture + Design's Jennifer Johanson over lunch at HD Expo last week, we talked about the kinds of projects and ideas that will be game changers. In her view, one of those categories will be big-box atrium hotels. Owners are signing checks for design work to freshen up these 1970s-era properties in anticipation of an uptick in the meetings, incentive, conference and exhibition (MICE) market. But most of the commissions are for piecemeal work rather than property-wide renovation. For now, that means a lot of attention to reworking public spaces without infrastructural changes.

Johanson is using elements that create a sense of movement to update atriums like that of the Hilton Anatole in Dallas. “People don't want to be in dead zones,” says the president and ceo of the San Rafael, Calif.-based design firm. So she and her team are re-envisioning the enormous lobby as a piazza with various food and beverage outlets off the main walkways, much like a small town. To get people to linger, the designers are working with Mesa Design (Dallas) on an Asian-inspired garden to showcase some of the museum-quality oriental art pieces from the collection of the hotel's legendary owner, the late Trammel Crow (and his wife Margaret), as well as a 130-ft. reflecting pool. (The Anatole is now owned by Harlan Crow, ceo of Crow Holdings.)

However appealing that design package is, “You can't rely on people to fill the atrium 24 hours a day,” says Johanson. She and her team found another option to animate and energize the expansive public space. “I'd been thinking about introducing some kinetic sculpture into our designs,” she says. “It seemed right for this project given the Crow family's passion for and support of art.”

Her client not only agreed with the approach, but approved a plan to have three sculptors work up concepts. How did Johanson find the finalists? “I Googled kinetic art,” she says. Here's what impressed her:

· Tim Prentice, who uses sculpture to express wind and movement:

    www.youtube.com/watch?v=v15LsXbBDN4

· Reuben Margolin, who uses found materials for his techno-kinetic work

      www.youtube.com/watch?v=dehXioMIKg0

· Stuart Schechter, who uses highly complex computer technology to orchestrate movement:

     http://www.sandcartstudio.com/

Prentice would have had air currents playing over a mirrored sculpture that waved above the reflecting pool. Schechter's plan called for a computerized art work that would have had more than 2,000 programming points adjusting elements to shift the height and spacing of elements to create a new image every day of the week. But it was Margolin's mix of mechanization, materials and movement that won the day. “Listening to him describe his vision to the client was one of the greatest days I've had in my working life,” says Johanson.