5 minute read
The Look of Calm
The acclaimed Vermilion Zhou Design Group has unveiled its latest lighting design for the JI Hotel chain with a restrained and integrated approach at the showcase Shanghai property.
It’s clear that the Vermilion Zhou Design Group has substantially evolved its lighting design for the Chinese chain JI Hotels. This is version 5.0, a decade on for from its first involvement with the brand, which has welcoming a staggering 60 million guests annually to its 2,000 outlets.
The designers say that the rapidly changing modern world and the uncertainty of tomorrow has accelerated hotel guests’ feelings of tension and anxiety about life. Hotels, as service bodies of ‘hospitality' spaces, have long transcended mere accommodation. The diversification of hospitality and the sheer variety of hotels also generate new anxieties for travellers. So putting guests at their ease has been a paramount concern of the design team and lighting had a crucial role to play.
Vermilion Zhou has tracked the changing progress of business travel over that time, transitioning from optional to essential, from low to high frequency, and from planned to spontaneous.
In the new Ji Hotel 5.0, the theme no longer ‘emphasises' business travel, but rather relaxes and leaves space, ensuring that everything is more natural and inherently suitable.
The hotel lobby blurs the boundaries of space functions. One of the symbols of the hotel brand, the welcoming pine still stands, exuding a misty and artistic charm.
This has become a new signature of the new Ji Hotel version. The tea bar area, where the fragrance of tea overflows, offers novelty and sincerity to refresh travellers from fatigue and restlessness.
The breakfast area, visually akin to Ji Hotel's signature white rice porridge, gently soothes every traveller with its homely fragrance.
The lighting design concept is one of restraint and integration. Conceived by lighting designers Vera Chu and Chia Huang Liao, it is based around carefully integrated lines of LED lighting in cool colour temperatures. Coffers and rafts provide visual interest and texture to the ceilings as well as welcome locations to integrate the beautifully detailed light. Similarly, it’s integrated into shelving and into backlighting. This allowed the design team to create diffuse ambient lighting from various heights and angles, adding layers to the spatial atmosphere.
The intelligent dimming system modulates lighting scenes, saving energy and reducing carbon.
The entire hotel's decoration considers factors such as replication, construction efficiency, environmental protection, and practice of genuine modular assembly, meticulously combining aesthetics and technology. From the on-site construction phase, the company is keen to reduce both environmental pollution and energy consumption and the Vermilion Zhou Design Group was tasked with meeting this challenge.
Vermilion Zhuo Design Group was founded by Kuang Ming (Ray) Chou and Vera Chu in 2002. Ray received an M.A degree at University Politécnica de Catalunya in Spain where he was deeply influenced by European culture. However, his design is informed by a blend of Western logical thinking and the pursuit of the Eastern lifestyle. ‘Always starts with people, and provide them a better lifestyle’, is his response to enquiries about his design style.
Consequently, the practice’s design philosophy combines Western logic with analysis ‘with a contemporary Eastern humanistic mindset’.
As at the JI Hotel, the team tries to emphasise the practicality of spaces and the elevation of aesthetics. It aims to popularise designs that seamlessly integrate beauty and functionality.
PROJECT CREDITS
Lighting Design: Vera Chu, Chia Huang Liao
Creative Director: Kuang Ming (Ray) Chou
Concept Design: Ting Ho
Interior Design: Garvin Hung, Jing Zhao, Xiaobo Yi, Lida Lin, Xinze Li, Xuyan Jiang, Bin Lv, Weilong Tu, Yuxuan Li, Changsong Li, Mingrui Gao, Bo Liu, Lanyun Qiao
FF&E Design: Ruiping He, Qikai Zhang
