Restaurants and bars call upon all of the senses, not just taste, to establish an emotional connection with customers. They rely on their architecture and decor to establish a visual identity that reflects ...
Creativity has replaced conspicuous consumption at the Argos in Cappadocia resort, the Comfort Inn and Sleep Inn brands and the Sir Plantin hotel.
By Mary Scoviak
Argos in Cappadocia Resort
It took owner Göksin Ilicali and his Argos Design and Construction team 15 years to transform the tangled debris of a 2,000-year-old village and the warren of caves and tunnels that surround it into the five-star Argos in Cappadocia resort. Not surprisingly, the challenges of installing modern ventilation through ancient stone chimneys, fitting luxury bathrooms under the curve of the rock caves and hauling out hundreds of truckloads of soil pushed the project well beyond its initial schedule and budget. But one thing that didn’t change over a decade and a half was Ilicali’s insistence on restraint.
“Modest yet elegant is the formula for modern luxury,” says this Turkish entrepreneur. “This place was a village, not a palace. Our aim was to preserve the soul of that village, adding only what was essential to meet guests’ expectations for a five-star experience.”
The 42-room resort shows that ostentation and open-ended budgets don’t exist even in the five-star realm. For the most part, guests share the aesthetic of the original inhabitants thanks to the painstaking work that rebuilt the walls and preserved details such as the niches that now hold valuable art and artifacts. But they don’t have to forgo millennial creature comforts such as travertine cladding and sinks in the cave spaces or private swimming pools in the Splendid Suites.
“Any site with this kind of heritage is innately luxurious because it is rare,” says Ilicali. “What sets Argos apart is that the design doesn’t lie about what existed here and what we’ve added. The old parts are old, and new parts are new, but in harmony with the old. Our guests understand that, as does the media. Payback is running much faster than we expected and we’ve won a number of awards. As the philosopher Mevlana said, ‘Be seen as who you are.’”
Sir Plantin Hotel
Getting the most from the design budgets for three- to four-star boutique hotels comes down to one thing: focus. The trend now is to channel guests’ attention to signature elements they can’t miss. Alon Baranowitz, architect with Amsterdam- and Tel-Aviv-based B.K. Architects, did exactly that with the oversized art that defines the 178-room Sir Plantin hotel in Antwerp.
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