Room with a view

A luxury apartment feel, plus views across Dubai, define the rooms and suites at the InterContinental Hotel in Dubai Festival City.

Sitting at the top of Dubai's creek, amid the still developing Dubai Festival City, the InterContinental Hotel is in a prime position to observe the rest of Dubai. From the windows of the hotel, guests can see the flickering skyline of Sheikh Zayed Road and watch the boats come and go on the creek below them.

Behind those windows are rooms not only with a view, but with a different perspective on the way hotel guests like to use them. The changing relationship between the hotel guest and their room has influenced the design. Research, including that by interior design firm GA Design, indicates that guests are spending more time in hotel bathrooms.

"Our research shows us that the bathroom has developed much more of a focus for the guest as a primary use, particularly when there is a view like this to make the most of," said Terry McGinnity, executive director of GA Design.

"Guests tend to dawdle and spend more time in bathrooms the more you open them up. The old way, with the bath at the back and no real windows, has been discounted as the desired approach for top end hotels. We're desperately trying to open up our rooms as much as possible, so you feel more comfortable and spend more time in them as a consequence."

McGinnity sees the spa market as one of the biggest profit centres in hotels, as opposed to gym market, which is relatively static, and thinks growth in the spa sector has created a desire for pampering among the travelling business community too. In turn, this has resulted in greater attention being given to bathrooms. The shift in the use of space is leading to a change in the way it is designed.

In speaking about the rooms at the InterContinental, McGinnity says the design is about the relationship of space and the doubling up of spaces. The rooms use focus points and the flow between them to enhance the feeling of space. The result, says McGinnity, is rooms that are more open and enticing.

"We tried to bring in an inventive use of space, with better flow and less of a hotel feel to it," said Terry McGinnity, executive director of GA Design. "We wanted to try a more inventive use of space, which is particularly evident in the standard rooms.

"We make them more inviting and then we try to layer it and get more complexity in the space," he said. "Rather than go from room to room, we really like the idea that you can almost open up and drift through the spaces.

Open spaces are achieved thanks to a clever combination of folding and sliding doors, which mean that the room and the large bathroom can all be opened up into one space around a central services core, or closed off to provide privacy in the bathroom. Sliding doors can even create a small hall area by the room's entrance, which means room service can be delivered without staff entering the room. Having this flexibility built into the design enables the rooms to accommodate all cultures.

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