2 June 2020
Webinar Details:
Design Re-Invented: Hospitality Health & Wellness
2nd June 2020
CEO and Founder of GOCO Hospitality, Ingo Schweder, joined a panel of industry leaders in a webinar that discussed the shift in health and wellness design across the hospitality sectors in response to the fundamental changes COVID-19 has presented the world.
The webinar, which was held on Tuesday 2nd June and hosted by David Johnson, CEO of Delivering Asia Communications, was the 2nd in a series titled “Design Re-Invention”.
Schweder joined two other speakers, Patrick Keane, Founder of Enter Projects Asia and Bill Barnett, Managing Director of C9 Hotelworks, to share his thoughts and ideas on the future of health and wellness design.
Schweder began the webinar with a brief presentation outlining health through design, exploring the importance of incorporating resilient design principles into hospitality and wellness spaces.
Referencing several major projects that GOCO Hospitality is currently working on – including AMAALA, an ultra-luxury destination in Saudi Arabia developed by PIF, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia and Moonstone Wellness Retreat, an upscale nature retreat in partnership with Innovation Norway – Schweder dissected the unique elements of wellness design. These included biophilic and sustainable design, safe and secure spaces that incorporate technology and adapt to crises, and community spaces, exploring their effectiveness in terms of health, disease mitigation, wellness and emotional wellbeing.
Following Schweder, Patrick Keane discussed what he coined ‘The Aha! Shift’, explaining how the COVID-19 pandemic has presented an opportunity for designers to step back and look for their own ‘Aha!’ moment.
Sharing various examples, he explored the possible routes that wellness design is likely to take after COVID-19 subsides, such as merging 3D technology with regional arts and crafts, reusing and repurposing the old and using less new materials and returning to nature through biophilic and biomimicry.
He also discussed the potential for artisan design and craftsmanship to become more popular and more widely used as we step away from disposable, short-life creations and look to ‘design the antiques of tomorrow.
Bill Barnett then engaged the audience with a short collection of closing thoughts about how health and wellness experiences have already begun to trend before the pandemic and will continue to do so into the future post-COIVID-19 landscape.
A short Q&A session concluded the session, which was recorded in its entirety and shared online.
