Premier Hospitality

Sound Hotel Seattle

Sound Hotel
Written by Roma Publications

The Sound Hotel

Woven into the fabric of Belltown, one of Seattle’s most vibrant and centrally located neighbourhoods, the new The Sound Hotel celebrates the sights, sounds and tastes that are unique to Seattle.

Owned by The Hotel Group and Hilton, and showcasing the Tapestry Collection by Hilton, the hotel occupies the first 10 floors of the newly-built mixed use 42-storey Arrivé tower.

Interior designers for the project were Hirsch Bedner Associates (HBA). Main contractors for the construction of the building were PCL.

Jenna Hackett, global head, Tapestry Collection by Hilton said: “We were thrilled to open The Sound Hotel – the brand’s first hotel in the Pacific Northwest, particularly in a city like Seattle that is known for innovation, great restaurants and a thriving arts scene. Just as Seattle is one of the fastest-growing cities in America, Tapestry Collection continues to rapidly expand.”

The Sound Hotel features 142 exquisitely designed guest rooms with expansive views of the downtown Seattle skyline and Puget Sound, and a 36-seat ground level restaurant, Currant Bistro, with an adjacent grab & go coffee bar.

The hotel’s 7th-floor Lupine Room offers 770 square feet of divisible meeting space, ideal for groups of up to 35. Featuring plenty of natural light, it can easily transform into an event space to accommodate an intimate gathering. In addition to the Lupine Room, Sound Bite Lounge is a relaxed, post-meeting gathering spot with a seasonal outdoor sundeck offering stunning views of the Space Needle.

David Watkins, General Manager, The Sound Hotel said: “The hotel’s design drew directly from the Belltown neighbourhood’s deep roots in the arts and local music scene, mixed in with the natural beauty of the Puget Sound region. Warm, rich textures in our rooms offer visitors an authentic Northwest experience, while the artistic elements reflect Seattle as a bustling hive of creativity.”

Hirsch Bedner Associates immersed themselves into the hotel’s neighbourhood, visiting local hotspots and meeting with the community, to create an authentic Belltown experience.

Upon arriving at the hotel entrance, guests are immediately welcomed into an ‘artist’s studio’ as stretched canvases, murals and finished concrete floors flow towards the reception desk. Guest rooms feature warm, wood-toned floors, echoing the feeling of a musician stepping onto a stage. Dark, moody bathrooms are reminiscent of backstage dressing rooms, with microphone lights, plush robes, metal accents and rich black linear tiles setting the perfect backdrop.

Artistic elements are also featured on the exterior of the hotel. David Watkins commissioned Seattle graffiti artist Weirdo, a.k.a. Jeff Jacobson, to paint an original mural on an exterior brick wall facing several of the guest rooms, effectively turning those rooms into some of the most desirable in the hotel. This larger-than-life piece features Jacobson’s signature vivid, post-Internet hyper-realism style and beautifully tells the story of The Sound Hotel through art.

Ashley Bright (Senior Project Designer) of Hirsch Bedner Associates said: “We began the project with direction to develop our concept around the adjacent neighbourhood. The ownership group also wanted to ensure the project was created with appeal to a broad range of clientele.

“We began our process by spending time in the neighbourhood, researching and meeting the locals to really get a sense of the fabric of the community. From there we pulled key qualities like the local music scene, bustling city and surrounding vistas and translated those inspirations into our design.”
She added that the goal was to create a neighbourhood experience for guests and really imbue a sense of place into the project storyline and interiors. This was the main driving force behind the concept of the interiors and carried through in all decisions such as the murals seen throughout the interior, the colour palette and artwork curation.

The biggest challenge of the project was tackling some of the broad-stroke changes that occurred during the building’s construction – such as the lobby level planning and planning at level 7. It required a finely crafted balance to develop those adjustments while construction was ongoing and demanded skilled coordination between the entire project team – which was key to the success of the project.

Ashley Bright concluded: “Feedback from hotel guests has been great has been great. There is also an excellent operations team at the property, which is so important. They really do a great job of taking care of the guests and ensuring that the guest experience is complimentary to the interiors that we have created.

“It’s been a lot of fun to see this project evolve and come to fruition. The project was a little longer than usual and it was very rewarding for the whole team to see all of the hard work become reality.”

 

 

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Roma Publications