Leading architectural practice, Howarth Litchfield, has picked up seven new refurbishment projects in the Midlands and South of England for Holiday Inn hotels.
Located in Southampton, Gatwick, Farnborough, Coventry, Leicester, High Wycombe and Reading, the hotels require a range of refurbishment work in three main areas – bedrooms and bathrooms, function suites and meeting areas – known as Academy areas – and open lobby refurbishments, which relate to reception, dining and lounge areas.
Although these are new instructions, Howarth Litchfield has worked on a number of the hotels in the past when they were under different ownership. However, it was the firm’s recent appointment on a project much closer to home – the redevelopment of Shire Hall in Durham City to create a four star hotel for Hotel Indigo, part of the InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) portfolio – which proved influential in helping to clinch the Holiday Inn work, which also operates under the IHG brand.
Predominantly appointed to undertake interior design, refurbishment work on the hotels will be undertaken in three phases and prioritised to suit the needs of the client with sample rooms for all hotels due for IHG sign off in July before roll out commences in November.
Howarth Litchfield is now working on finalising details for the bedroom tenders in readiness for appointing contractors to undertake the refurbishment work. These will be followed by the open lobby and academy tenders with work on site due to commence in November for completion in January.
Lisa Orrick, associate and lead interior designer for Howarth Litchfield, is enjoying the opportunity to put her creativity to work for a leading leisure brand like Holiday Inn. She explains the project phasing:
“Our approach overall has been to provide a cost effective solution with modular, bespoke elements which can be used over all of the hotels.
“For the bedroom and bathroom design, which is based upon the IHG brand standard specification, our role has been to find a suitable interiors solution which would not only sit within the client’s budget but has the flexibility to be rolled out and adopted across all seven hotels.
“Looking at the academy areas, although these are also based upon current designs within other Holiday Inn destinations, we have introduced more contemporary furniture and detailing to complement existing interiors within three of the hotels and our design approach to the lobby areas has been similar. Using the design philosophy for IHG and Holiday Inn, we have devised a unique colour palette in three further hotels with the incorporation of new finishes, furniture and lighting.”
Howarth Litchfield director, Dave Pickersgill, who specialises in the technical aspects of project delivery, believes the firm’s existing knowledge of the hotel buildings, combined with its growing reputation in the leisure sector made them a strong contender to undertake the work. He said:
“We have acquired a great deal of experience over the years on leisure sector projects such as this and fully understand the economic drivers when faced with a multi-site design brief. This usually means that a fair amount of value engineering is required when working to a fixed budget across seven sites simultaneously. Fortunately, we have a well-staffed and enthusiastic interior design department at Howarth Litchfield so we are rising to the challenge with confidence and looking forward to seeing the finished product in early 2018.”
Other members of the professional team are WT Partnership providing project management and quantity surveying with Hoare Lea as mechanical and electrical consulting engineers.