3.6 Room design Key recommendations in brief: *
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If possible, separate guest unit areas for daytime and night-time uses; Ensure that the plan of guest unit is open and uncluttered for effective cross-ventilation; Make optional open-to-air spaces for sleeping or resting private and secure; Provide access for mobility impaired people to at least 10 per cent of all units.
It is advisable to utilise local materials and local building crafts, skills and knowledge whenever possible. When designing a resort, ‘going beyond the usual’ quite often means that locality influenced features such as roof form, window frame, railing and interior detail will take a more prominent position. There is a risk of local builders, craftspeople and artisans having difficulty going beyond their ‘usual’, i.e. domestic type architecture, but this problem can be overcome with robustness of the resort design and by the designer drawing on a local vocabulary of building solutions. Interiors in a resort should support and extend the general idea of eco-friendly, self-sufficient and efficient design. Thoughtful planning, good organisation and uncluttered detailing are required to offer living conditions compatible with the character of the tropical location and lifestyle of its itinerant occupants. As is the case with many other aspects of the resort design, requirements relevant to interiors have to reconcile many contradictory needs. Their design should draw on vernacular architectural traditions, yet be contemporary in their response to the guests’ needs. It should be rich in detail exposing visitors to the local culture but unpretentious, comfortable and sparingly economical. The interiors should provide a variety of experiences without introducing a cacophony of disjointed and unrelated elements. Guest units in a resort serve a limited number of functions. At least three of the following four functional parts can be distinguished in most units: * * * *
sleeping with limited storage (bedroom); hygiene (bathroom); circulation space and storage; sitting/living (optional).
The part of the guest unit devised for all-day use can be separated from the bedroom in as far as it has
different thermal and visual requirements. Typically, it comprises a dedicated sitting/living area, storage, a bathroom and necessary circulation. A kitchenette can be added in the so-called ‘self-contained’ units. However, the use of individual cooking spaces in tropical eco-resorts should be discouraged because they contribute to unwanted heat and humidity problems, and further draw on the limited energy available. The daytime functional part of the unit has quite a limited use in the tropics and its functions are best moved to roofed open-air rooms, such as lanais, verandas, balconies or covered terraces, with access to amenities shared with the night-time part. From an environmental design angle, the only requirement for this part is the provision of shade and sensible airflow, which are relatively easily provided by any covered space outside. Night-time part requirements are a little stricter and, besides thermal environment, include also noise control and safety. Apart from walls separating guest units, acoustic solution is a resort plan domain and is best considered at that level. In addition, safety of unit occupants is best resolved at the resort level. The unit should be open as wide as possible to invite breezes and allow dealing with the thermal environment problems by passive means. The issues that can and should be tackled at the room design level are the health concerns. These concerns can be presented as material selection issues (compare Sections 1.3.4 and 3.4.3). The majority of such concerns are adequately addressed by using traditional construction technologies in conjunction with locally obtained materials. This functional scheme appears in all 2- to 5-star resorts, typically differing only in size of spaces allocated to particular functions and the standard of finishes. The sizes of guest units vary due to economic and/or site considerations. The recommended minimum structural grid width is 3.3 m, which leaves about 3.0–3.1 m of space available between the walls – depending on the wall type. Most rooms would therefore be designed at a 3.6 m grid span at lower end and 4.2–4.5 m at higher end resorts. Unit lengths are less critical from an economic point of view. Typically, they range between 6–9 m. At such room depths and with openings at both opposite walls, effective cross-ventilation and daylighting are available, while floor area is sufficient to fit in the required functional parts. Usual room heights should be about