Past Event

London, UK

Easy to design, hard to deliver: what does hospitality really mean in workplace design?

Hospitality has become a familiar idea in workplace design. But beyond the trend, how do you create that feeling in a workplace, where budgets, operational demands and the needs of so many different people all have to be considered?

These were some of the questions at the heart of WOD’s recent roundtable at the beautiful Lutron showroom, bringing together industry leaders from across design, project management, cost consultancy and the client side.

One thought, shared by Lindsay Roth of Gensler, anchored the conversation: true hospitality isn’t a space, it’s a feeling. It wraps itself around everyone passing through, creating a sense of care for all – staff, support teams, clients and visitors.

But creating that feeling takes more than borrowing ideas from hotels. In a hotel, you’re the guest. Someone makes your coffee and shows you the way. In a workplace, the space itself has to do so much of that work.

The challenge is how to protect that experience when it comes to delivery.

When budgets are squeezed, the thoughtful extras are often the first things to go. Yet these can be the very details that make a space feel welcoming. As Carolina Trujillo observed, without genuine hospitality expertise in the team, you risk ending up with little more than a slightly nicer-looking cafeteria.

There’s also a fundamental difference in the commercial case. A hotel can earn back its investment through its guests. In a workplace, you invest in the experience and then have to persuade people to come in. Making the case for that investment means looking beyond the initial cost to consider how a space will be used and experienced over time.

Looking ahead, the room agreed that the word may fade but the feeling will stay. As Tina beautifully put it, hospitality is really shorthand for humanity: comfort, warmth, softness and connection.

Hosted by Harsha Kotak (Founder WOD), this was a conversation full of empathy and attention to the smallest details of what makes people feel looked after.

Perhaps that’s what hospitality really is: care, made visible.

Thank you to Lutron for hosting us, to Mark Eltringham and Works Magazine for partnering with WOD, and to Tina Norden, Natalie Thomson, Lindsay Roth, Suchita Jain, Carolina Trujillo, Kiyasha Amaidas, Esha Purewal, Margarita Gonzalez and Kimberley Sandiford for such an open and thoughtful discussion.