An Art Deco Hotel – Part II: The Bones
After getting all the inspiration I need from gorgeous hotels and homes all over the world, I was finally able to model the base structure of our Art Deco hotel room. In this article we’ll have a peek at the room, as well as the choices of colors and materials.
The Bedroom with Sitting Area
I was debating whether I should model a suite, with the bedroom separate from the sitting room, but eventually decided to just create a “standard” room. You know, the one they call “superior” in some hotels but is actually the smallest among the available rooms. Every good hotel has a dazzling presidential suite, but I think it is the standard room that defines what the hotel is really all about.
For our high-rise hotel, I made a 6m by 6m room, with a 3m ceiling height. That’s for the bed, sitting area, desk and bookshelf. Here it is, in plain white:
A view of the room, all in white.
The step ceiling is hexagonal in shape, with cove lighting. The side of the hexagon is parallel to the window wall. I’ll share with you below a variation of this ceiling. For the external glass wall, I used a model by Studioblock‘s Sato Masakatsu, an architect specializing in 3D CG in Hokkaido, Japan.
Color Matching Fun
Next I picked out the colors for the room. I kept the ceiling, door and window frames, and skirt and moldings white, so was left with the walls and floors. First, the walls. I must admit that I spent an inordinate amount of time at Benjamin Moore’s Color Gallery. This tool is totally addicting!
Color matching our chip with Benjamin Moore paint chips.
See the color chip on the left hand corner in the image above? I created that color, a kind of light gray cashmere. A neutral gray with a warm undertone would be the perfect backdrop to the reddish-brown antique furniture. Next I went to BM’s to find a match.
But instead of just going about my original business of color matching, I went through a hundred other possible choices, color picking the paint chips and then trying them out with the modeled room. Of course, this took a lot of time. But it was so much fun! It almost completely stalled me, though, and I nearly forgot about my deadline. There were so many wonderful hues and shades and tones to try out! In the end, I settled for the color I had originally created :). The nearest color match (as far as RGB goes) is BM’s Apparition, though as you can see above London Fog and Seattle Mist are also possible choices.
Needless to say, the paint chips you see here are RGB approximations of the CMYK pigments of BM’s paints, so they are far from being the actual colors under white light. Speaking of light, we all know how a color (hue, shade, tone) looks completely different under varying lighting conditions. So please note and bear with the differences!
The Materials Board
After settling with a wall color the rest was quite easy. We already have the furniture: Art Deco antiques in deep, rich reddish-browns. I selected the following fine products: soft furnishings from Stark, Schumacher, Lee Jofa, Osborne & Little, Pratesi, and Raving Beauties. The beautiful rosewood and mahogany veneers are from Pollaro Custom Furniture.
The materials board for our hotel room. Please see below for links to sources.
This board might change a little, after I put the furniture in the room and adjust the lighting. I’m committed to plenty of grays and silvers, to create a serene background for the Art deco furniture (who, without doubt, are the stars of the show).
The Result (So Far)
Here’s a look at the newly-painted room, sans furnishings. The background I shot from the Rockefeller Center observation deck in New York, during a visit to the city last year.
A view of the room, with wall paint and carpeting.
The frosted glass panels for the windows have chrome-plated frames. Chrome was the hot new thing during the Art Deco era, and could be found in many period rooms. The shiny surface enhanced the rich colors and patterns of the varnished wood. I want me some chrome-y!
Oh, and I need to mention, I was inspired by the pattern of the glass doors of the fabulous Art Deco bathroom shown here. So I modeled the pattern and added some frosted glass for privacy. 😀
Above are some variations of the room. My heart is set on a silvery gray carpet from Stark, but I also tried out some wooden flooring. Silver rugs over dark wooden floors are really tempting; the only thing keeping me from going with such a combination is that the space is a hotel room and wall-to-wall carpeting would be the practical choice.
The room, as with the furniture, is modeled with Shade 12, and rendered with the same software using path tracing, radiosity and volumetric lighting.
Up Next
Next post we’ll model the rest of the furniture, fixtures and fittings.
I’d Love to Hear From You
So, what do you think of the room and my furnishing choices so far? Do share your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below.
Related Links
An Art Deco Hotel – Part I: Inspiration – a look at our top sources of inspiration.
Books to Consider
External Links to Sources
F. Schumacher – soft furnishings with exquisite designs. Source of the throw pillow cover textures.
Osborne & Little – beautiful fabric and wallpaper designs. Source of the leather texture.
Lee Jofa – high end furnishings. Source of the cocoa velvet texture.
Pratesi – luxurious bed linens. Source of the white pillow case and sheets texture.
Raving Beauties – handmade cashmere and accessories. Source of the silver pashmina texture.
Pollaro Custom Furniture – makers of museum-quality furniture. Source of the wood veneer textures.
Studioblock – architectural visualization pro Sato Masakatsu’s website. Source of the external glass wall model.
Webtreats – wonderful textures for CG. Source of the flooring texture (I colored the original gray version using Photoshop).
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That’s 10 Likes for you! Love the all-white version. Cove lights look nice but perhaps a bit too distracting? I somehow like the ceiling without it. Can’t wait for the room to be completed.
Thank you, Han! Yes, there’s still an internal debate going on whether to keep the cove lights or not :). I’m thinking that since the furniture will be all shiny-and-imposing I’d need a lighted ceiling to balance out the showiness of the lower area. We’ll see how it turns out after I place the furniture. I’ll make sure to show both versions of the ceiling.
Are those window drapes? I’ve never seen any that wide.
I doubt if any superior room would have such a spectacular view (at least in a central business district the hotel is located in). More likely, it would have the width of one pane and the room would be build going in towards the center so more rooms would have windows.
Can’t wait to see the final room either!
Hi S! So nice to have you back here 🙂
Do you mean the window portion? No, those are not drapes. Drapes would mean fabric, but this time I opted for glass panels with metal frames. It’s called a “Bifold on Track”, a system of hinged doors that stack against a wall. It’s usually for indoor-outdoor partitioning (weather-tight when closed). Since there is already an external glass wall I adapted the system for privacy purposes, using thinner and more decorative panels.
Bifold doors are expensive, and you’d have to have custom-made screens. Here are some real-world examples: http://www.alspics.com/affordable-bifold-doors-collection/
The photo in the bottom shows how this kind of door system can span several meters.
Ah, I thought that might be the case but I didn’t know what they’re called. I have seen cloth “drapes” that fold like the track but they’re usually just a bit wider than vertical venetian blinds.
Ahh, you must mean fabric partitions like these: http://www.chadwickwalter.co.uk/partitions-fabric.htm
Yes, I’ve seen them too, in clinics and offices.
素敵なビューのホテルですね。
フロアのバリエーションでは明るいウッドタイプがいいかな。
コメントありがとうございます！そうですね、ベージュ系の明るいフローリングも試してみたいと思います。
Nice!
Hi! Thanks for visiting! Glad you like it 🙂