The Contribution of New Construction Technologies to Interactivity, Flexibility and Personalization in Hospitality Design, as Explored in Student Projects

Achievements in construction/fabrication techniques and technology-orientated design production influence hospitality design. New technologies affect the ways tourism information is spread, accessibility of searching, booking and reviewing, as well as spatial design that takes into account new technologies in the ways space is processed, fabricated and used, leading to a reconsideration of the hospitality accommodation. Regional and personal values, together with a significant demand for involvement of the self and a search for identity are attempting to keep balance with globalization. Tourists seek for interactivity and personalization and as a consequence designers respond. New technologies support batch production and variations, and their incorporation in the construction transforms establishments into flexible smart buildings that satisfy the changing social and individual needs. Customizable production technologies promote the extensive use of personal preferences in colour, texture, settings, arrangements and layouts. Digital simulation techniques allow the creation of virtual environments to investigate their application. The aim of this paper is to explore, through student projects, the new trends in construction that gain an increasingly important role in hospitality design. Students interpret the differentiated stimuli they get in the educational process and integrate fore-coming technologies in order to produce speculative and foretelling scenarios.