24 spaincontract. Meeting Point. Eva Ballarin
--- ATerraza del Hotel Riu Plaza de España en Madrid.
--- AThe Terrace of the Hotel Riu Plaza de España in Madrid.
This is a reflection born of a moment when it is also necessary to embrace consumption again,
to fall in love with sensations. To recover and to establish the attraction of face-to-face businesses,
which inevitably involve the generation of an experience that cannot be replicated at home,
creating a physical and real atmosphere with a greater power of attraction. In short, for inventing
those places where we live experiences that cannot be generated at home.
Keep your distance without losing closeness
One of the main premises of the new ‘healthy friendly’ design is that we need to maintain social
distancing between people, both to comply with current regulations and to convey that feeling
of a safe and healthy place. But how do you keep your distance without losing closeness? Reorganizing
the interior rooms, redirecting the human flows and with a lot, a lot of design, focusing
on the ‘human experience’.
The reorganization of human flows - what I call the “Ikea effect” - is a different way of organizing
the interior space to minimize crowds and to reduce the points of interaction between
people. The need to maintain physical distance without damaging personal contact favours
the development of systems beyond methacrylate partitions, ranging from air purifiers to the
implementation of a ‘calming atmosphere’ that reduces anxiety caused by hyper-marked and
compartmentalized areas that are set out by the protocols.
New spaces, new uses, new trends
In the coming months we will see new spaces for new uses. What is driving the change is, fundamentally,
the need for security: to recover it, to manage it, to guarantee it and to transmit
it. In the new society of Values, the Security value (understood as health security but also as
security in the rest of life areas) is key; Furthermore, when it comes to designing spaces and
The packaging of any experience – any
face-to-face one- is the setting. That coincidence
of images, textures, aromas, flavours
and sounds that stimulates our senses. Space
as a sensory atmosphere that allows reality,
through sensations. A warm light that
caresses the cutlery which we are going to
use to eat, the smell of jasmine at sunset in
a hotel patio, the clink of ice in the glass
in a cocktail bar, the cold marble of a bar
counter.