Subscribe“Business” has had the historical perception of being an exclusively male domain, something that women should not concern themselves with.
The Victorian “architects” of Public Houses and Gentlemen’s Clubs actually designed the window height of the buildings exterior to be sufficiently high enough so that a woman passing by would not be “troubled” by seeing in. It was quite literally “above their heads”. That was then and we are firmly ensconced at the start of the 21st century, and airports play an ever increasing role in promoting international trade despite the increasing proliferation of “easy to use” communication tools.
Today’s business traveller whether male or female is never off duty, it is a 24/7 life but even here there has been a tremendous change in business profile. The business passenger has got younger rather like the London policemen. He or she may be dressed in jeans and trainers – couture of course, rather than the once typical business apparel. Although the financial services once dominated business travel it has now become the domain of the “new” industries such as computer services and media. This in turn has changed not only the business passenger profile but also the needs and desires for airport services.
With all these changes has come various airline market segments such as “Business Class”, the “Frequent Flyer” and if you are Virgin “Upper Class”. Also the business traveller is a more frequent user of airlines and hence airports. More time is being spent in these places and as such airport facilities have expanded.
The Business Lounge used to be and was started by airlines that offered different levels of in-flight service. These “extra” facilities started as a private lounge seating area away from the mass of travellers and offered a chair that was akin to your drawing room furniture, newspapers and a bar facility, and how wonderful it was, but it was not a place to work, on the contrary it was a place to chill out, relax and think of home! These areas have now been designed into a hive of business activity with wireless connections as standard but also meeting rooms, quiet areas, and a bar that sells more than just a gin and tonic. They have become the airports business “capital” but operated only by airlines? Airport operators particularly the new ones have been quick to grasp the importance of such places but offer it to a much wider audience via various operational modus operandi. One such new Business Lounge designed by The Design Solution is the Business Lounge at the new Suvarnabhumi Airport managed by King Power.
This facility is not so much about “business” , although business people use it, but more of a “members only” lounge for King Power loyalty members. These are people who are frequent flyers and “heavy” consumers within the Duty Free offer which is both Downtown and at the airport. The major difference with this lounge is that it is not aligned to any airline or ticket price. Part of the King Power offer is a “Crown Service” which is a personalised check-in and walk through service offered to the VIP category members within the loyalty programme.
The lounge itself is 450 square meters of space offering internet facilities, extensive food and beverage selection together with showers and bathrooms. Here The Design Solutions creative remit was not to make it look like a regular business lounge but that it should reflect the status, needs and desires of the VIP King Power members themselves. Luxury was enhanced by expensive finishes and a feeling of space. Service is obviously a key element here as well.
There is of course a natural extension of the Business Lounge and that is a facility that combines the two most important ingredients in the 21st century and that is “Business” and “Leisure”. This is a big and burgeoning market that somehow exemplifies today’s modus operandi of contemporary life. To a certain extent it has been born out of a combination of ancient Eastern culture combined with the madcap style of the Western World. Very much East meets West and gets on jolly fine! There have been several reasons for the development of “Leisure activities” within the airport framework.
First you have the growing internationalism of business ensuring that wherever a potential customer or market may be there will be a plane to take you there, or will there? Global business has meant that both airports and the airlines themselves have had to play catch up to a certain extent. A multi-dollar deal may not be able to be executed on a flight from A to Z it may not even be possible on flights A to P and on to Z. Here we have the birth of the “Hub” airport that can offer good business strategic destinations as a starting pint together with an extended range of facilities for the business passenger that may have to “live” in the airport from anything up to ten hours with no escape route.
Changi Airport has for a long time been one of the international passengers favourite Hub airports due in part to onward destinations but more recently because of its Leisure and Business passenger offer. In fact this airport based array of amenities is meaning that carriers are now in competition with each other to fly into and out of Changi Airport, a question of Chicken and Egg!
What then is this Leisure offer that is now being concentrated upon by many various airport business operations? The sky is virtually the limit but because of the natural shortage of airport terminal space “design” is one of the most critical elements in the successful planning and building of these places and a lot of this come from architecture and design practises that have a prominent history of the very best of retail design.
A Leisure offer or Well-being “clinic” has the potential to provide all the constituent parts that add up to pampering from massage, body toning, tanning booths, hairdressers, and even a quick medical once over. They also combine this with the core facilities of the business lounge thereby allowing a choice of work or leisure – better still, have both. These well-being and leisure centres are now so important that there are small spin-offs in non-Hub airports where if a passenger has a spare half hour he or she can be given a quick facial and body toning treatment before or after the flight.
These facilities are increasingly being started and run as stand alone ventures in airport terminals and one such business is The Design Solution created Rejuve based in Heathrow Airport Terminal One, a natural location for the onwards passenger traffic flying out. It also came about by the increasing commercial opportunities in global “lifestyle” issues. This enterprise was the thought process not of an established health sciences provider but by a group of entrepreneurial global travellers who themselves needed this king of lifestyle facility as they were all frequent flyers.
Rejuve chose The Design Solution for the creative work because of the company’s successful track record in retail design for the Rejuve “clinic” was to offer more than a massage and haircut, it was to be a thoroughly rejuvenating experience for the traveller. The brief was to combine all the Rejuve wishes into one cohesive area that embodied a relaxing area and a gym. For The Design Solution this was to be planning on a very detailed scale.
The design “feel” came about as a “club” style but with an element of quirkiness to it as well. A rich palette of both materials and colours where used together with a very comprehensive lighting system that ranged from a very grand central theatre light to subdued lighting for the massage rooms, which in itself was a very complex solution. The positioning of the Rejuve “clinic” is at first floor level so it was important that the reception area was both visual and welcoming from ground level. Here light oak was used for the flooring together with high lux levels. Upon entering the facility there is greater use of the rich colour palette with purple, blue and browns.
The complex detailed planning of Rejuve needed to take into account how many treatment rooms would be needed, where the Barber was to be situated, shower rooms and the main central seating area designed and built as a theatrical lounge. It was not all about pure positioning of the many amenities, passenger usage had to be taken into account, who would use what, for how long and how often. Rejuve was to be run as a “club” with a membership and an on-line booking facility for all the services the centre had to offer.
This type of passenger provision is set to grow within an airports framework. Space is always at a premium so both the planning and design of such places is critical. The Design Solution with over two decades of airport commercial master planning and design have seen and been involved with the changes of commercial direction airports have had to take. Nothing stands still and airports are ever changing.
