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Tina Norden, Partner & Principal, Conran & Partners, In conversation with Wang Fang, Fortune China

Brainstorm Design 2024: Design For Transformative Spaces

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

Reid Hoffman, Partner, Greylock; Founder, LinkedIn; Co-founder Inflection 
Saam Motamedi, Partner, Greylock 
Moderator:  Jeremy Kahn, FORTUNE

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