This project has been the first I’ve worked on in naço ShangHai. The interior design takes place in a Ibis Hotel in Bangalore, the Paris office taking care or the Novotel part which has shared services in the same building.

Due to a request from Accor France’s marketing director (directeur de marque Accor France) relayed by naço architectures, pictures related to this article have been put offline.

One of the main constraints of this project was the dust, meaning not too much fabric or materials that would catch it easily and would be hard to clean (’makes sense in a restaurant...)

We made two proposals for this project, following an evolution in the building’s plan:

first proposal: uniting spaces with paths flowing through them

The purpose here was to join and subdivide with the use of plaster elements mainly hanged from the ceiling.

We then could have a link between the waiting area and the bar while still keeping them separate by the reception lobby. The path can also create a distinct area while it turns back towards and on the floor, encompassing the whole thing.

Vertical separations were suspended to separate the bar from the restaurant while still allowing people to use both for the breakfast, as stated in the requirements from ACCOR.

The structure grid has been used to create a clear limit between restaurant and buffet area, with a colorful material in the thickness of the columns on floor, walls, and ceilings.

second proposal: creating different kind of spaces articulated around the reception desk

We revised the layout since building’s changed in the meantime. The buffet area also had to be more visible when one entered the building.

While providing another version, we still kept some elements (buffet area’s limit, link between bar and waiting area...)

The back-wall of the reception desk was treated with half translucent and opaque materials to allow natural light to go in the back office during the day and offer light effects in the back-wall during the night.

In this layout, we definitively played with traditional Indian games as the Pachisi or snakes and ladders. The floor tiles are part of it, the ceiling lamps too, and the mosaics used to protect the columns in the restaurant and the bottom parts of the corridors are somehow inspired of this too.

We also kept a single path which joins the two opposite points of the first floor. A set of light boxes is fixed on the ceiling and waves from the waiting area to the buffet area where they explode in many different lights. This guides the eye from one point to another of the building.