If the mantra is understood chant it now.The design canvas must have the beauty of the product etched in everyone’s mind. Transferring that conceptualized image into the brick & mortar building is the beginning of a great journey & the journey should be memorable & the design must have the most dramatic commercial story line.
IS OUT OF THE BOX DESIGNING A BIG GAMBLE: ROLL OUT THE LUCKY DICE.
Planning is done with the help of specialists in the field. These experts who have time and again tried to achieve standards befitting the final product are people who can steer the clients towards achieving the desired product.
In the field of hospitality who then are these people? There are two so called distinct categories of Hospitality specialists. These are Hotel Operations Design or the Restaurant Operations Design Consultants and then there could be the Food and Beverage Concept consultants. In addition there are The Architects, The Interior Design, The MEP, the Structural ,the Landscape Consultants etcetera etcetera.
The larger the project then consultants like traffic consultants, Horizontal & Vertical transportation, Lighting, Art consultants can all join in. The roles of the Architect and Interior Designers are and should be limited to bringing about the required forms in the space both externally and internally
The Hotel Operations Design Consultant also has a large cache of knowledge to help put together a concept package. Again these are very few in India. The Hotel Design Consultant or the Food and Beverage Concept consultants should always be the first to be inducted into the team of the client. The reason for this is amazingly simple Hospitality and Food and beverage is the primary need for customers to be satisfied for the product. The Hotel Operations Design Consultant or the Food and Beverage Concept consultants should be the ones to guide the Architect or Interior Designer and the Client as to what should be done to achieve the right product in terms of the hospitality operations and F&B mix. They are the ones that help marry form with function. Wrong sequencing brings about incorrect planning and redoing of various aspects leading to time lost and money, this is further compounded when the operators who the client brings in do not agree to or appreciate the sequence of events leading to chaos.
THEN THERE ARE THE WHIPPING TEAMS:
The “we should hurry up this project” & “this is required yesterday as a deliverable” are quite common statements made by the Client.
Thus, there are the pacifiers required in every project sometimes inviable sometimes in the face set of specialists.
Today every project must have good project coordinators or a good Project Management team. These people are answerable to the client and these hand hold all relevant consulting agencies to ensure that the project progresses in the correct time sequence. Another important role within this framework of consulting and managing agencies is the role of “Quantity Surveying”. The people who perform this role are either on the Project Management team or on the Architects team. They can provide a service termed as “Value Engineering” This helps the client to save money as alternatives are looked at by this specialist function of “Quantity Surveying “.