Graven Images and Blythwood Spa features in US Magazine Hospitality Style

22.12.10

The 10,000-sq ft. spa at Blythswood Square Hotel wasn’t one of those easy projects for Glasgow’s Graven Images. Even allowing for the fact that this was the 25-year old studio’s first spa, finding the concept to fit this underground space wasn’t easy. It didn’t help much that the firm’s interior design for the hotel itself had enthusiastic buy-in from the owner, the Town House Co., as well as having earned Hotel of the Year honors in the Scottish Hotel Design Awards and a spot on the 2010 Condé Nast Traveler Hot List. Visits to urban and leisure competitors didn’t markedly shorten the learning curve either. “The more we talked about the aspects of spa design that were set in stone, the more confused we got,” says Jim Hamilton, Graven Images’ Design Director. However, clarity came as the designers took off the gloves and vented. “We were just a bit fed up with spas that were about products rather than experiences, with the whole ‘palace of bling’ thing, and with all the whale music”.

Hamilton and his collaborators had seen inventive solutions at beachside resorts, mountain retreats and “facilities in cities that don’t have lousy weather eight months of the year,” as Hamilton puts it. Yet none seemed to apply — either to the locale or to Graven Images’ vision for this venue two levels below the street. “Most spas are light. That’s ok if you have a beautiful view of a sunny beach or the desert. But, in this context, that would make me think of a doctor’s office,” says Hamilton. “I wanted this to be dark, like a sheltering cave or a womb. I wanted to create the feeling you get when you go into a darkened cinema during the day and forget where you are”.

Fast reveals may be on trend, but they were not part of Hamilton’s plan. “Seeing everything at once is boring. Space planning should be a carefully considered journey,” he says. That suggested the idea of a series of narrative design experiences. Graven Images’ team began mapping out a sinuous layout that would give guests small glimpses of what was around the corner as they walked deeper into the spa. Each turn would change guests’ perspective as they moved through areas of light and shadow. Contrast was key. “We were playing with the power of dark and light, water and fire to dramatize the differences in the dry experiences on the upper level and the wet elements below,” says Hamilton.

The reception area establishes those themes. With its soft white walls subtly accented with a thistle pattern and Harris tweeds, the spa’s check-in borrows directly from the hotel’s colour palette, materials and style. It’s familiar, soothing and almost residential in proportion. The reception’s focal point, a screen crafted from tiny pieces of driftwood found on the beach, conveys to the guest that what lies beyond isn’t Blythswood Square anymore.

As guests leave the bright lights and the city feel, the spa’s materials become darker, shifting from the striated shine of Scots granite, to the shimmer of steely metal and the gleam of black mosaic tile. Lighting switches the mood from one space to the next. Strategically placed spheres glow along the floors of the corridors, infusing a candle-lit quality to what otherwise would be static transitional space. But even in these functional areas, there are surprises — like zinc fixtures that radiate filigreed shadows and pendants that send golden LED waterfalls from a drum-like pendant near the ceiling half way to the floor. The mix of product designs and the layering of light over the full length of the spaces add to the drama.

“We approached this like stage lighting,” says Hamilton. “For example, in one area, guests enter in darkness. Then, we bring up the lights, one by one. Or, take color-changing LEDs. They’ve been used a million times. But we changed it up by using them sparingly to warm up or cool down specific areas — like the long wall along the pool that’s hot pink to look like fire.”

On another level, the designers had to anticipate how the guests and staff would experience the treatment spaces themselves. Hamilton credits Matt Laird, spa director of The Town House Collection at the project’s outset and now resident manager of the Six Senses Sanctuary Phuket, with helping his team “see what the guest sees and understand what the therapists need to work efficiently and comfortably.” Laird and his successor, Leon Trayling, made the designers conscious of the fact that the 150-sq ft. treatment rooms had to leave space for the therapist to move easily around all sides of the treatment bed and still have access to supplies and equipment. “They also asked us to think about what the guest was seeing from the treatment bed. Cables? Emergency lights? Just the therapist’s hands sort of levitating? It was a real wake-up call,” says Hamilton.

Considering design from that perspective underscored the importance of interesting ceiling treatments as well as flooring. Lighting had to be positioned off to the sides or modulated so that guests wouldn’t be staring into it. And there had to be some eye candy. “We like introducing small things the guest may not have seen before, like the drinking glasses or the Russian candleholders,” says Hamilton. “You don’t have to make things too posh. You just want to invite the guests to keep looking — maybe catch something in their peripheral vision.”

Turning to the foodservice, one of Graven Images’ long-standing specialities, the team knew exactly what the intent would be: not the usual lounge for the smoothie-and-carrot crowd, but a relaxing place to enjoy “fantastic food” and, maybe, a nice glass of wine and a cocktail. So instead of the patio-style table and chairs, the designers encouraged lingering with chairs that are more like loungers and tables brought up to the appropriate height. “We had a lot of discussions about those chairs and tables. The last thing we wanted was an upright, uptight chair.” Hamilton says. “Since it was our first spa job, we were anxious to get everything right. The most satisfying thing is seeing it all working.”