Designing serviced accommodation for both guest appeal and long term durability

Serviced accommodation is judged twice. Once by a guest deciding between two listings on a screen, and again by an operations team eight months later, when whatever was specified has either held or started generating work.

Most specifications are written for the first judgement. The cost of that shows up in the second, and it shows up as rework, as inconsistency between units, and eventually as a review that prices the asset down.

The durability question is commercial

A finish that photographs beautifully and marks easily is not a design preference. It is a decision to spend more on housekeeping every month for the life of the asset, made by someone who will not be carrying that cost.

The questions worth asking at specification are operational ones:

• Can this be cleaned to standard in the turnaround time the rate assumes?
• If one unit of this is damaged in month nine, can it be matched, or does the whole room fall out of the set?
• Is this specified tightly enough that a replacement bought in two years is the same thing, or does it depend on whoever does the buying?
• Does the finish hide wear, or display it?

Consistency is the asset, not the individual room

Guests do not compare a room against a standard. They compare it against the room they had last time, or against the photographs. Two properties in the same portfolio finished to two different standards produce a reputation problem that neither property deserves individually.

This is why a schedule of finishes matters more than a mood board. The mood board sells the scheme; the schedule is what survives the departure of whoever designed it.

A specification that photographs well and fails in month eight is a commercial decision disguised as a design one.

The handover is where it usually goes

Design and operations are typically separate mandates, and the gap between them is where durability is lost. The team that will maintain the space is rarely in the room when it is specified, and the specification rarely arrives with them in a usable form.

What closes it is unglamorous: a room-specific standard the operations team can inspect against, rather than a general one, and a named person with authority to release a unit against it.

Corinth runs design and operations under one roof for this reason — our Design Studio specifies against the standard the hospitality operation will have to hold.