Project: Novotel Christchurch Airport
The Southern location is embedded in the design concept for this Novotel Hotel in Christchurch. Heritage Carpets worked closely with lead designer Angela Pelham of Warren and Mahoney, and the design team, to deliver custom solutions for 8,000m2 of carpets and rugs throughout the hotel that created an incredible result visually as well as economically.
Design Challenges:
1. Hotel Rooms
The design team wanted a carpet feature in each room, that spoke to the language of the surrounding landscape.
Typically the solution would be to cut and splice in a contrasting piece, to give the sense of a feature rug, meaning there would be a carpet join. We elected to weave into one piece the contrasting colour in the same pattern, which reduced any potential weakness in the performance at the join, and made installation faster and easier. We needed to be very precise with our lay ups, which varied across several different plan layouts, so that the features were in the right position in each space, and to reduce wastage. The result is striking and unique, expressing the theme of the contrasting landscape that is integral to the design concept.
2. Corridors and meeting rooms
The brief was to create an inviting experience up to the room levels, and in meeting spaces, to reference the surrounding landscape.
We collaborated with the designer to maximise the effect of the corridor pattern, and then to ensure that same pattern worked optimally where it was extended off the corridor into meeting rooms. As the meeting rooms had glass walls and no edge strip to divide them, the carpet pattern needed to be continuous, running left and right off the corridor. This had the potential to create unwanted seams, wastage and mis-matched grain/pile fall between the spaces.
We made the decision to weave the carpet in two widths to reduce waste, to ensure meeting rooms wouldn’t have joins in the middle and that the pile, or grain of the carpet, would match between the corridor and the meeting spaces.
The end meeting room we felt the pattern worked better running in the opposite direction, so we worked closely with the installer to retain a flow from the corridor into the space.
Pelham says, “The long corridors are considered, with a rhythm of timber panelling and textured wallpaper. Organic land contours sweep the floor, interrupting the monotony.”
3. Front of House
The front of house lounges offer places to relax. Each of these spaces on the ground and mezzanine floors required a different bespoke rug to “explore a slightly different theme, tailored to the experience,” explains Pelham.
We worked with the designers to bring their ideas to life, across several varied designs. Once finalised, samples were made to confirm pattern and colour matched the design vision, before the rugs were manufactured.
The custom rugs we delivered are highlights of the completed spaces. Pelham enthuses, “Each rug was designed to represent the changing topography of the local landscape. Working through the hundreds of colour poms and the pile design from low loop to sheered cut was an intricate and timely process. The largest was 10×7.5m and it took at least 10 people to move it into place.”
Our team worked hard to deliver exceptional results, from the design stage through to being alongside the installers on site on numerous site visits.
The bespoke carpet solutions from Heritage Carpets were an integral part of a layered design that celebrates the textures and colours of the South Island landscape.
Quotes from article by Melanie McDaid “Airport Dreams” for Architecture Now https://architecturenow.co.nz/articles/airport-dreams/
Project Information
Project Name: Novotel Christchurch Airport
Architect/Designer: Warren & Mahoney
Products: Custom Rugs and Broadloom by Heritage Carpets