Tina Norden, Partner & Principal, Conran & Partners, In conversation with Wang Fang, Fortune China
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00:00Tina, it's really good to have you back with us on the stage.
00:03It's great to be here.
00:05Right.
00:05As Tony just said, your career spans
00:11stretches across different continents,
00:13different sectors in hospitality.
00:15You've worked on projects, hotels, restaurants,
00:18residential places, sometimes in really far-flung locations,
00:22Hong Kong, Mumbai, and London, of course.
00:25So you must have dealt with where am I challenge
00:28all the time.
00:30You don't want guests to feel like, OK, this is the room.
00:33Wake up and feel like, OK, this is the room.
00:36I feel exactly like the room I stayed a week ago.
00:39So whenever you are faced with a project,
00:44how do you do to give the design language
00:47to let it tell a unique story about that particular location?
00:52What's the research process like?
00:55Well, it's the million-dollar question, really.
00:57But we always start with looking at location, very importantly.
01:01Sense of place is now trademarked,
01:03so we can't really use that anymore.
01:04But we look at the historic context.
01:07We look at the architecture.
01:08We look at everything surrounding our project,
01:12really looking for clues, looking
01:13for interesting little stories, looking
01:16for interesting different elements
01:18that we can use to inform our design.
01:20But actually, the most important and most fundamental part
01:22is the people that are going to be using it.
01:24And with that, it's not just the people
01:26that are going to be staying in a hotel,
01:27but it's also the people working there,
01:29the people that form the entire cosmos of the project.
01:33And it's really trying to find a way of designing for them
01:36and being specific.
01:37We firmly believe if you try and design for everyone,
01:40you design for no one.
01:41Actually, the more specific you can be with design,
01:44the more you actually create something that is unique
01:46and is something that will appeal.
01:47Right.
01:48But does it involve a lot of talking with local people,
01:52staff members?
01:53Absolutely.
01:54I mean, I think the connection into the team
01:57that we're working with in every location,
01:59and there is always a team that we're working with,
02:02what we do is not done in isolation.
02:04And whether that is team members that are from a place,
02:07we rent international office, even though we're quite small,
02:11or whether it's actually speaking to the people
02:13that we're working with on the ground,
02:14is to understand the culture, spending time as well,
02:17spending some time eating, going out, seeing the streets,
02:21and really kind of getting under the skin of a place.
02:24From your website and from the speech you gave us yesterday,
02:29I can see a lot of your projects,
02:31they're really good at blending heritage and modernity.
02:35So what is the trick of doing this?
02:37How to strike the balance between the two?
02:40I mean, working with historic buildings and historic cities,
02:44I mean, that's what we're all in.
02:46Every city has its amazing history.
02:48For me, it's about preserving the old and highlighting it,
02:52you know, bringing it back to what it was.
02:53But everything that's new has to kind of feel like it's new.
02:57I think there's nothing worse than trying to recreate the past.
03:00It's about layering, and cities are always about layering.
03:03It's about bringing new and old together
03:05and creating something that then works for the future.
03:07Right, we will have a look of your amazing projects in a minute.
03:10But before that, I want to ask this question,
03:13because the theme of this year's event is experimental experiences.
03:20So how are clients in the hospitality industry
03:24thinking about immersive experiences?
03:27Are you using new technology like AR, VR, even gaming gadgets?
03:34Or you depend more on, I mean, classic storytelling techniques?
03:37Well, in a funny kind of way, I think architecture,
03:40or certainly interior design,
03:41is probably more analog than other design disciplines,
03:43just by the very nature of we deal with things that you feel,
03:46touch, sit on, you know, engage with fabrics, whatever it might be.
03:50So, you know, that is most important from our point of view.
03:53But what's really interesting is that a lot of the stuff
03:56that we almost intuitively did are now backed by science.
03:59And I think that's very exciting.
04:01We heard a lot of that today, of course,
04:03you know, that actually there's now explanations
04:04why a certain colour might work,
04:06or there's explanations why certain things trigger the brain in a way.
04:10But ultimately, I think quite often for us,
04:12it comes back to a kind of gut feeling
04:14about the experience of working with people
04:16and trying to create spaces that we want people to feel good in.
04:20And maybe that's not always so digital.
04:22Maybe that's actually kind of more analog
04:24and it's overlaid with more digital elements.
04:27Great. So post-pandemic,
04:30not only have we found people doing hybrid work increasingly,
04:35people are also doing more hybrid travel, which we call it.
04:39So basically combining work and leisure during their trips.
04:43So what challenges does that pose to hotel design?
04:48I mean, for me, it's a great opportunity.
04:50And it's a really interesting conversation we have with our clients,
04:54you know, trying to create spaces that actually work
04:56for all sorts of different aspects of someone's life.
04:58And they might want to, you know, have a massage
05:00or they might bring their family along when they go on a business trip.
05:04So they want to work in their room,
05:06but they also want to maybe dine there or they want to relax there
05:08or they want to do all sorts of other things.
05:09So we need to design hotels and hotels are small.
05:12So, you know, you can only do so much in one room,
05:15but we need to design them to be flexible environments
05:17where people can do all sorts of different things.
05:20And I think that's probably part of the reason
05:21why we don't really see that many desks in rooms anymore,
05:24because actually people want to use their space more flexibly.
05:27They work in all sorts of different ways.
05:28And maybe they just want a nice big table
05:30or they might want to be sitting on an armchair.
05:32So we need to think about the different ways
05:34of how people use their room,
05:35but also, of course, what's offered in a hotel.
05:37And we see much more animation of public areas, for example.
05:40And of course, the wellness aspect,
05:42which has kind of gotten into pretty much everything
05:45that we do in terms of design.
05:46Very interesting.
05:47So it doesn't really almost require more space in a room,
05:51but more smart use of different corners and furniture inside the room.
05:57Definitely.
05:57So last year on the same stage,
06:00Tony and I discussed how AI is changing the way designers work.
06:04So you said at that time,
06:06you're just beginning to test it, experiment with it.
06:10So a year on, so what has happened in your team, for example?
06:15How have you changed, perhaps, your perception about AI?
06:20We're very ambivalent about it.
06:22And I think a lot of designers probably agree with that.
06:25We're using it a lot more for research tasks.
06:29We're using it a lot for image manipulation for research.
06:34We use it a lot for, I guess,
06:35the kind of maybe slightly more menial tasks.
06:38Where we're a little bit more cautious about it
06:41is by actually using it as a driver for design.
06:44We like the kind of more analog storytelling,
06:47but we like to then use AI to facilitate that,
06:50to speed things up, to speed up processes.
06:52And what I'm very excited about is that hopefully in the future,
06:55AI can start working with us on the drawing packages
06:58and the kind of more menial tasks that have a lot of human error.
07:02And I think that's somewhere where I'm very excited to see more of it.
07:05So my understanding is AI can contribute during the process,
07:10sort of in the middle of the process, but you initiate the project.
07:14You give it the original idea.
07:16And then at the end of it, you make the final decision on the...
07:20Curation.
07:21Curation.
07:23The decision-making stays with human beings.
07:26Great. I can't wait to delve into some of your amazing projects.
07:30Let's have a look.
07:31So tell us about these projects. Amazing.
07:34So this one is Park Hyatt, Jakarta.
07:36You're probably familiar with the Park Hyatt brand,
07:39and you're probably familiar with the great city of Jakarta.
07:42That's one of the kind of crazy, busy, very vibrant Asian metropolises.
07:48And what we tried to do here is really to bring a little bit of Indonesia
07:52as a country of, I think, 17,000 islands, different languages,
07:56and huge amounts of kind of nature and natural resources
07:59into the urban context.
08:01And that was the inspiration here.
08:03Great. This is the lobby area?
08:05This is the lobby area on the ground floor.
08:06So this is basically the first thing people encounter.
08:09And we worked together with an Indonesia-based art consultancy
08:13who helped us creating artworks that are very much crafts-based.
08:17And that's something that was very much part of the story,
08:18also with everything that we put into the interior.
08:20Yeah, that's more and more we see in Chinese hotels as well, craftsmanship.
08:24And this is actually...
08:26It's another Park Hyatt, a very different one.
08:28This is actually in Changsha.
08:30Changsha of China.
08:31Which, thankfully, people are aware of.
08:33If you talk to anyone in Europe, they say Changsha,
08:35and it's a city of 11 million people you've never heard of.
08:37But it's a fantastic city. It's a media city.
08:40You're probably all familiar with how vibrant
08:42and how future-thinking and future-facing it is.
08:46So this is actually in an ultra-high-rise building,
08:48which is quite exciting, has its own kind of challenges.
08:51And what we tried to do here is to create a bit of an urban oasis.
08:54I mean, that's a very much-used term.
08:57But in a city like Changsha, you really kind of need that.
09:00And it's picking up both on the kind of Asian heritage
09:04and the Chinese heritage, but also creating something
09:06that brings that into a very modern context.
09:07Changsha is actually very well-known in China for its entertainment industry.
09:11So it's a very vibrant and young city.
09:16Next one.
09:17Well, now we're going into a slightly different place.
09:19So this is Taj, the Trees in Mumbai.
09:22And for all of you familiar with the Taj Bund,
09:25you're probably surprised to see something
09:27that's so kind of contemporary-looking, I guess.
09:29And the exciting thing about this was that we worked together
09:32with a very forward-thinking, very contemporary client
09:35who wanted to create something that fits within
09:38what he was doing in his own compound and wanted to be part of that.
09:41But he wanted to, as coming from an old Indian family,
09:44work with the heritage company that Taj is.
09:47And Taj has been amazing in giving us the opportunity
09:50to create something that's maybe outside of their comfort zone,
09:54but allowing us to do something that kind of merges
09:57their brand ideas and their brand kind of direction
10:01with something much more contemporary.
10:03Very curious, last year, when you were on the same stage,
10:06you actually, this hotel just opened, had just opened for a few months.
10:11So a year on, based on all the feedback you've been given,
10:17what are the design elements that have worked particularly well in this hotel?
10:21And if given the chance, you can make some revisions, what would that be?
10:25Well, unfortunately, as a designer, you always want to make revisions.
10:29You always spot things that are not quite right.
10:31But I think the nicest thing that I've heard is a colleague of mine
10:34who's from Mumbai saying that her friends actually go there
10:37for kind of weekend retreats.
10:38And I thought that was fantastic because it's slightly outside of the city centre.
10:41It was always intended to be a bit of that.
10:44But at the same time, they're saying when they were staying there for the weekend,
10:46there was all these kind of conferences and business meetings
10:49and things going on because it was meant to be part of the local community.
10:52So those are two key things we wanted to achieve.
10:55And it's great to hear that that seems to have happened.
10:57So staycation, that's what we call it, is becoming a trend, right?
11:01So people go to the hotel, not necessarily to another city,
11:04but they can just have a relaxed weekend in the centre of the city, perhaps.
11:12This is a residential place in Hong Kong.
11:14Yes. So this is actually a villa,
11:16which everybody familiar with the size of apartments in Hong Kong
11:20would know is unusual to have that much space.
11:23But it's outside of the city centre.
11:26It's a big new development by Olsen Kundig.
11:28And we designed a couple of the larger villas in there.
11:33Wanting to create something that is away from the typical luxury,
11:38that's very layered, that's maybe quite glam.
11:41We wanted to be something that's very understated, sophisticated
11:44and feels like something where people can just breathe out and relax
11:48and be in an environment that is soothing for the soul.
11:51Very contemporary and neat feeling. Great.
11:55And this is the centre point.
11:57Well, this is actually a great example of what we talked about, urban heritage.
12:01This is a very interesting building.
12:02It's a 1966 tower that was built in the centre of London as an office building,
12:08not for a particular client, but a speculative.
12:11It was a pioneer in concrete construction.
12:14And it sat empty for a very long period of time
12:16because it didn't really work as offices.
12:18So our client purchased this around 2012, something like that.
12:23And we then set into completely refurbishing it as an architect
12:27and interior designer to turn it into residential,
12:30which has been very successful.
12:32I think they only have two or three units back.
12:33They're not cheap, so they're definitely kind of quite high end.
12:36But it's a very unique place to live.
12:38And it takes a particular person, I think, to choose to live there.
12:41How many flats are there?
12:42It's only about 80, so it's not that many.
12:45They are quite large footplates.
12:47We've got two lifts.
12:48So you have either only two people sharing one lift core
12:51or you have your own lift core.
12:52So it obviously is a really quite luxurious and unusual setup.
12:56You completely changed the function and the use of this building.
13:00And this is, I believe, in Tokyo.
13:02This is in Tokyo.
13:03I'm a huge fan of Japan.
13:05This is in Kita Aoyama in the city centre.
13:08It's a free-standing residential building.
13:10It's amazing to get the opportunity to do that.
13:13It really showcases Japanese concrete work,
13:15which is absolutely exquisite.
13:17There's only about 16 apartments in the building,
13:19so they're very, very sizable.
13:21And the building shape was really coming from space regulations in Tokyo,
13:29overlooking, et cetera.
13:31But it was then inspired by Mount Fuji,
13:33which is actually visible from there,
13:35and to have that kind of stepping in the architecture
13:38to not look unintentional, if that makes sense.
13:40Right, so the mountain is at the far end of the...
13:44Yes, the stepping back to it and the terraces that have been created.
13:47It's amazing, right.
13:49Next one is a hotel actually in...
13:51This is here.
13:51Yeah, it's a restaurant in Macau.
13:53Yes, it's in the Four Seasons Hotel, and it's called Ote.
13:56It's a very casual Japanese ramen restaurant.
14:00It doesn't look very casual, but this is casual Four Seasons style.
14:04But the idea is really for people to come,
14:06have a beautiful bowl of noodles.
14:07And we showcase the making of it from the very beginning.
14:11And that was part of the design process.
14:13They have these amazing stockpots where they make the noodles.
14:15And we wanted to bring that experience to all of the people eating there,
14:19so they can actually see how it's made,
14:20they can see how the stocks are created,
14:22and then enjoy the results of that.
14:24Very immersive.
14:25And the last one is in downtown Melbourne.
14:29It is, yes.
14:29So my husband is Australian, so this was close to the heart.
14:33It is at Lawson Place,
14:35which is actually a company owned by Vingtai,
14:37who some of you may be familiar with.
14:39It's a long-stay, short-stay concept.
14:42And so this is for people living there at times for months or weeks,
14:46but also for people, you know, just staying there as guests.
14:49But the most exciting thing is that installation in the centre,
14:51which was based on the history of a printing house,
14:54that this building was,
14:55and working together with an Aboriginal artist
14:58to create an inspired version of that.
15:02Great, fantastic.
15:03We've gone through the pictures,
15:04and it just shows all your projects embrace a wide range of cultures,
15:10contexts, and scales.
15:13Thank you very much, Tina Nolan, for all this amazing work,
15:16and all the insights and thinking behind all these projects.