Taking our insights from researching the regional and local context of the hotel we developed a series of strategies for the pool and lobby areas of the hotel to improve its engagement with the Design District, hotel programming, and social atmosphere. 

Before SCAAA’s intervention, the DoubleTree hotel exchanged little with the rest of the Design District; it hardly felt local, despite being the nearest hotel to Hi Line, the cultural heart of the Design District. Previously, guest activities had been bound by their spaces: adults drank at the bar, kids hung out by the pool, and families dined at the restaurants. The lack of exchange was a symptom of the separate spaces being, simply, too separate. Our renovations focused on facilitating visual, circulatory, and programmatic interaction between disparate activities to activate new modes of socialization for the aged hotel - improving both culture and revenue.

In the lobby, our redesign relocated the computer room and gift shop, streamlining operations and increasing the open space to encourage guests to gather and socialize. As a part of our study to optimize the hotel operations, we determined that the existing business center could be repurposed to better reflect the guests’ preferences. We expanded the restaurant that had previously shared a wall with the business center and implemented a wifi enabled “Lobby Connectivity Zone” to help cultivate the hotel’s social atmosphere.

For the pool, we upgraded the furniture, installed cabanas, and created a lounge area to facilitate social gathering. To enhance the visual experience of the patio, we applied a pattern to the ground tile, installed brick cladding on the exterior wall, and incorporated greenery along the border. In addition, all artwork had been curated to reflect the geographic area or local artists. In the renovated poolside, DoubleTree guests may seek physical and visual refuge from the heat and feel immersed in the aesthetics of the Design District.

The renovated DoubleTree aligns the spaces, provisions, and tastes of the hotel with those of the Design District to engage locals and guests alike. SCAAA’s designs have helped DoubleTree both generate revenue, by arriving at spatial solutions to business operations, as well as contribute to the cultural wealth of the burgeoning Design District.