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Specifying Planters for Hotels, Hospitality and Leisure Venues

How guest experience, brand identity and commercial performance should shape planter specification for hotels, restaurants and leisure venues.

An established hotel, restaurant or leisure venue is not simply selling a bed, a table or a ticket. It is selling an experience, on the strength of which a guest decides whether to come back. Customer spend in this sector is discretionary, and the more discretionary it is – e.g. the higher the rack rate, the more competitive the location – the more the experience is shaped by factors well beyond the core product itself, and landscape is one of those factors.

What types of projects fall within hospitality?

The sector covers a broad church: mid-market hotels, luxury and boutique hotels, resort developments, restaurants, bars, rooftop venues, leisure destinations and visitor attractions. These vary considerably in scale and budget, but they share a common set of design and specification challenges. This article focusses on hotels as:

However these challenges, to varying degrees, apply to all hospitality venues.  
 

The landscape is part of the guest experience.

Hotels are unusual because the landscape is not simply an external space around a building. It forms part of the product that guests are paying for.

The quality of the arrival experience, the atmosphere of a terrace, the character of an outdoor dining area or the privacy of a suite balcony all contribute to a guest's overall impression of the hotel. At the same time, those same spaces have to withstand intensive daily use and be maintained without disrupting normal hotel operations.

This combination of commercial, operational and aesthetic requirements makes hospitality one of the most demanding sectors in which to specify landscape products.

Hotels rarely stop operating.

One lesson we have learned from working on hospitality projects is that specification decisions continue to affect the hotel long after construction has finished.

Unlike many commercial developments, hotels rarely have the luxury of closing external spaces to carry out repairs or replace failed products. Courtyards still serve breakfast, terraces remain open to guests, weddings continue to take place and deliveries still have to be made.

A planter that is difficult to maintain, awkward to repair or poorly detailed can create operational problems for many years. For that reason, durability and ease of maintenance are not simply engineering considerations; they are part of the guest experience.

This rule also applies to other landscape scheme and architectural elements, such as cladding. For example, at Mercure Paignton Hotel and Bedford Hotel, IOTA’s manufacturing designs allowed for individual panels to be swiftly removed and replaced if damaged.

First impressions work hard.

Hotel entrance spaces often perform several functions simultaneously. They welcome arriving guests, accommodate luggage, taxis and deliveries, provide opportunities for planting and seasonal displays, and frequently establish the character of the hotel before a guest has even entered the reception.

These spaces experience some of the highest levels of pedestrian activity anywhere within the development. Products therefore need to combine visual quality with practical robustness, particularly where luggage, servicing and maintenance equipment are in regular use.

Guests view landscape at close range, for a sustained period.

A pedestrian in a public realm scheme passes a planter in a few seconds, whereas a diner sits next to one for an hour. Wear, finish quality and detailing that would be unnoticed at a distance are scrutinised closely in a hospitality setting, and specification needs to reflect this level of inspection.

Hospitality projects demand practical detailing.

Experience has taught us that many of the most important specification decisions are relatively practical and mundane.

  • How will a large planter be delivered into a completed courtyard?
  • Can individual components be replaced without dismantling an entire installation? This is particularly relevant to cladding, or planters with integral screening or seating.
  • Will irrigation, drainage and maintenance access remain practical once planting has matured?
  • Can surfaces be cleaned easily as part of the hotel's normal maintenance routine?
  • Has the design taken account of how the planters will be repainted in [say] 10 years time?

These are the decisions that determine how successfully the original design performs over the next ten or twenty years.

Specific design and specification considerations for roof terraces.

Roof terraces are one of the most common hospitality environments, and bring the structural loading, drainage, waterproofing and wind exposure considerations covered in our Roof Terrace Planter Design Guide. Whether this is a new-build owned by the hospitality company, or whether the hospitality company is a tenant in an existing space – either way, these schemes will most often need to be coordinated with the structural and design realities of the building design.

Planter movability may be a key consideration.

The same space is often required to generate revenue in more than one way. A terrace may need to support dining, private hire and event use within the same week, and the landscape needs to accommodate this without each reconfiguration becoming a significant undertaking.

Given this, hospitality is a sector where making the planters movable is a very common landscape scheme objective. And restaurants, for example, may not necessarily want the flexibility to reconfigure space; they may simply want to move the planters to a secure location overnight. 

The obvious answer is to integrate the planter design with castors: “just put the planters on wheels”. However it is not quite that simple, as there are many different types of castors, and many different potential configurations – as discussed here Moving Planters with Castors. And these schemes can fail because mundane, day-to-day operational considerations were not taken into account in the original design and specification.

A landscape scheme based on movable planters – when designed and specified with robust consideration of the site-specific operational considerations – can be an enormous asset for a hospitality venue. 
 

Integrated features may be a central design objective.

Privacy [and/or windbreak] screening is frequently integrated with planting in hospitality settings – particularly for the outdoor dining areas of restaurants or hotels, for example as here at The Lanesborough.

At 1 Hotel Mayfair, privacy screens integrated with the planters were used to separate the private terraces of the luxury suites, and the Green Park Penthouse, on the 5th, 6th and 7th floors. The screens were of a particularly innovative and sculptural design.

Planters can also be specified with practical functional attachments – menu boards or signage, for example.

See: Beau Brummell, St. James's, London and Cheval Old Town Chambers, Edinburgh.

More ambitious ‘hospitality’ schemes often cross over with public realm and retail landlord objectives, and may include integration of the planters with other elements such as seating and lighting. One example is this scheme for The Portman Estate in Old Quebec Street, London W1.

Materials should reflect the operating environment.

The right material isn't solely determined by whether a project is prestigious – as important is what the environment will do to it over the next twenty years. Coastal hotels require increased corrosion resistance. Busy urban hotels often benefit from finishes that disguise minor scuffs and wear. Luxury developments may justify premium materials such as lead, bronze or zinc where long-term appearance forms part of the architectural vision.

Durability is often a paramount consideration.

Hospitality planters need to withstand intensive, repeated public use, including direct contact from guests — leaning, resting drinks or bags, and occasional knocks from service staff and furniture. Specification should assume regular contact use rather than incidental passing use. 

The first line of defense – at least for metal planters – is often the quality of the paint finish, as powder-coated finishes are by far the most commonly specified in this sector, given the creative license it offers. It is often wise to specify a particularly hard-wearing and forgiving paint product. For example, a product which IOTA uses a lot in this sector is the Interpon D1036 Textura range which has a finely textured, highly-durable finish – described by Interpon as: “A hard-wearing , scratch and knock-resistant powder coating, perfect for high-traffic areas. The durable finish disguises imperfections and offers a low maintenance, easy-cleaning solution for public areas.” For more guidance see The Benefits of Polyester Powder Coating.

Health & Safety and Related Issues

Finger Trapping
For timber slatted seating, finger-trapping hazards are primarily evaluated under BS EN 1176 [the European standard for playground equipment] or BS EN 581-1 [outdoor furniture mechanical safety]. The fundamental rule is that all gaps, holes, and joints that a finger could enter must either be completely blocked, or wide enough to allow a finger to pull out freely; and it is generally accepted that the rule means that gaps between timbers should be either less than 8mm, or greater than 25mm.

Finger Cutting
Obsessive attention must be paid to ensuring that sharp metal edges cannot come into contact with the guests’ skin. For example, all edges under planter rims must be faired and radiused; and where gaps between cladding panels are accessible to the public, safety folds must be incorporated to cover sharp metal edges. 

Environmental Health
Particularly in areas where food service is involved, consideration should be given to environmental health concerns. For example, where planters are designed to be moved via fork lift or pallet truck, the necessary void under the planter can create a rubbish trap and vermin habitat; and in hospitality venues, it is advisable that these voids are blocked with removable panels.

Project experience matters.

Over the past two decades IOTA has supplied bespoke landscape products to a wide variety of hospitality projects, across hotels, restaurants, shared leisure spaces and sports venues. A selection from each is set out below.

Hotels

At Cheval Old Town Chambers, Edinburgh, a luxury serviced apartment property on the Royal Mile, IOTA supplied a bespoke lead-clad steel planter – lead being in keeping with the building’s historic Old Town setting.

At Adare Manor Hotel, Co. Limerick, 20 lead-clad tree planters [800mm and 1200mm, the largest weighing 369kg] were supplied for a refurbishment of this five-star hotel, detailed with counter-relief moulding to the rim and footing and subtle relief moulding to the sides.

At Mercure Paignton Hotel, Devon, IOTA designed, manufactured and installed planters, benching and around 85 linear metres of illuminated structural cladding, in 130 individually designed sections, to green a courtyard space at the heart of this modern seafront hotel. The planters were specified in 3.0mm 1.4003-grade stainless steel with a Corten-effect powder coating, applied to a coating schedule suitable for a C3/C4 coastal environment. The project is an example of planting, lighting and structural cladding designed and specified together, as a single integrated scheme, rather than as separate elements.

Restaurants and Retail

At Beau Brummell, St James’s, planters for Cubitt House’s outdoor dining terrace were specified with integrated menu board attachments and a banded, hand-formed steel bar top, combining the planting and screening function with a practical day-to-day operational need.

At Embassy Gardens, London SW8, 52 bespoke steel planters – rectangular, trapezoid and L-shaped – were specified to enclose the outdoor seating of Darby’s restaurant on a landscaped piazza opposite the new US Embassy.

At Old Quebec Street, London W1, 33 illuminated planters were specified for a retail and restaurant destination with no mains electricity supply available at street level. IOTA designed a rechargeable, battery-powered lighting solution as an alternative, balancing horticultural and maintenance requirements against a genuine site constraint.

Shared Leisure Spaces

At Bloomberg, London EC4N, 128 movable planters were specified for the ground-level hospitality and civic space of Bloomberg Arcade, each with internal gland plates to accommodate different combinations of electrical supply for individual retail tenants’ outdoor lighting and heating, accessed through magnetically-secured hinged doors. The castors are lockable and height-adjustable to suit multi-directional falls across the arcade floor.

At Lots Road Power Station, Chelsea, 22 stainless steel planters up to 3000mm were specified for the landscaped element of a 100-metre public atrium in the former turbine hall, fastened to the structural steelwork and integrated with lighting and drainage. Watertightness was an absolute requirement given the interior setting, and the planters were lined with butyl liners at installation.

Sports Venues

At The Kia Oval, Surrey County Cricket Club, two stainless steel planters [L1200 x W1200 x H1000mm] were specified for specimen yew topiary as part of a pavilion refurbishment, with galvanised liners isolated from the stainless steel to prevent galvanic corrosion, and thermal insulation between liner and planter to protect the root zone – the kind of detailing that matters for a single specimen tree intended to remain a permanent, recognisable feature of the venue.

Final Thoughts.

Landscape architects create memorable hospitality environments. Our role is to help ensure those environments can actually be delivered, maintained and continue looking exceptional for many years after opening.

The best hospitality projects are rarely distinguished by a single spectacular feature. They succeed because hundreds of practical decisions have been made well. Good detailing, appropriate materials, thoughtful manufacture and practical installation are what allow the original design intent to endure.

Related Resources

Featured Guides

Functional Integration

Project Environments

 

Need Help Specifying Landscape for a Hospitality or Leisure Scheme?

Every hospitality scheme has its own balance of guest experience, brand identity and commercial performance. If you are developing a planter specification for a hotel, restaurant, bar or leisure venue, we are always happy to review drawings, discuss practical options and identify opportunities to improve long-term performance and deliverability.

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