hospitalitystyle.com

(Winter 2011) posted on Wed Dec 07, 2011 EST

Cruise control: With its disciplined materials palette and intimate spaces, the 225-suite Seabourn Quest brings boutique chic to the high seas.

By Mary Scoviak

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Seabourn Quest may carry 450 passengers but, at heart, this luxury cruise ship has the ambience and attitude of a private yacht. With a space plan that prioritizes glimpses over big reveals and an FF&E program keyed around a few important elements, the latest iteration of Seabourn’s “less small” ships makes the point that ultra-luxury is about style, not size. Its sleek, human-scaled decks and interiors drive home the message that ships with the same guest capacity as some mid-sized conference hotels don’t have to hide behind heavy theming or play up cavernous grand salons. Clearly, they can wear lifestyle looks as well as any seagoing equivalents of fashion’s double zeroes.

Yran & Storbraaten Architects (Y&SA) ventured into uncharted design waters to give this liner the intimate feel of ships half its size. The firm had the benefit of borrowing from the templates of Seabourn’s original fleet of luxe, 208-passenger vessels. But the line’s executives wanted to do more than upsize their core concept. What they had in mind was a fresh visual identity with enough references to the signature elements to keep loyal customers happy and a host of updates to attract a new target market of 45- to 50-year-olds. One thing both markets shared was a preference for personalized experiences.

“We started with the very deliberate idea of reducing the size of the vessel visually,” says Trond Sigurdsen, senior architect with Oslo-based Y&SA. The design team stresses geometrics to define the visual boundaries of the public spaces. Circular forms provide a key theme, from the layout of the relaxation and treatment rooms in the largest luxury spa at sea (11,400 sq. ft.) to the three rings of “social seating” that surround the main lounge’s combined stage and dance floor. Y&SA uses these organic shapes as frames, giving definite borders to each of these rooms while focusing the attention on the theater of the activities within them. The architecture gets more linear in the food and beverage areas, with colonnades that screen off a quiet section of the buffet restaurant and a procession of lighted pillars that leads the way to the specialty restaurant.

Drilling down further, Sigurdsen and his team introduced a variety of focal points to guide passengers to the different experiences within the public rooms. For those who want a taste of the traditional Seabourn style, the specialty restaurant features the famous super-elliptical tables that are hallmarks of the original ships right at its center. Travelers with a preference for more modern styling can gravitate toward the angular tables that line the window wall. Even color works to outline a distinct environment. The rosy, brocaded banquettes that encircle the center tables are the only shots of color in what Sigurdsen calls the ship’s “tuxedo space.”

That attention to detail carried through the entire FF&E program to the lighting. Sigurdsen appreciates the impact of LEDs as effect lighting for dramatic settings like the spa’s color-changing waterfall or in downlights. But he’s not sold on them as a solution for every application. “We see problems with the value of light and angle of the beam spread from LED spotlights. The spectrum is still a bit on the cold side. It has a tendency to make colors, textures, materials and people look different—and not necessarily better,” he says. “The other issue is that you can’t achieve a narrow beam, so you can’t focus. Without focus, there’s no depth to the lighting design and the result is too flat to do justice to the space.” To modulate the mood and generate some drama, Y&SA combined ambient lighting and spotlights.

Although Seabourn Quest has its visual all-stars, like the black grid on the windows of the specialty restaurant and the coil of the atrium’s stairway, it’s the discipline of the overall design that makes this a trendsetter. “This is the architectural version of slow food. Although we have spaces with high contrast, the overall rhythm is calmer. There is a deliberate choice to reduce the number of different materials, textiles and patterns to achieve one aim: Subdued elegance,” says Sigurdsen.