Architectural Insights: Leisure & Hospitality

Can you tell us a bit about your background and your current role at CPMG?

I worked for five years in London at a Stirling Prize-winning firm on a range of civic, cultural, residential, and office sector projects, including the House of Commons, Television Centre, Tower Hamlets Town Hall, and The Alder Centre. During the pandemic, I returned to my university city, Nottingham, where I joined a firm specialising in leisure. There, I focused on a number of schemes ranging from traditional leisure centres to mixed-use leisure and residential projects, as well as stadia.

How long have you been working in leisure and hospitality architecture, and what inspired you to specialise in this field?

Broadly speaking, I have been involved in this field for nearly a decade, with experience ranging from smaller-scale hospitality projects to larger-scale stadia design. I find the way we live, work, and play fascinating for many reasons, particularly our micro-economies. With the rise of hybrid working, the gig economy, and AI, more and more people are leaving major cities around the world and moving to more affordable locations to live and work. However, the draw of major cities often lies in their entertainment offerings, such as the best venues, restaurants, clubs, and stadia. We are particularly guilty of this in the UK, and I have long been fascinated by the renaissance of Manchester and how it is reshaping itself as a cosmopolitan global city with a huge focus on play in the city centre. For example, it has now surpassed the O2 with Co-Op Live in terms of capacity and experience. As we live increasingly hybrid lives, when we come together, we come together for play—whether that be dining, sport, entertainment, art, or culture. Stimulating our play economy will form a major part of the future economy as automation and AI replace a significant number of traditional jobs. Creating special spaces for this to happen is both timely and important.

What are the key principles you consider when designing leisure and hospitality spaces?

In a world that is often fast-changing and difficult to predict, giving clients the ability to maximise the use of spaces is critical. Flexibility is a dangerous word, as it runs the risk of a space feeling unresolved. However, interchangeability and the option for future adaptive reuse, particularly in leisure and hospitality spaces, are critical components in delivering long-lasting value to clients. Central to interchangeability is the quality of space being provided. Leisure and hospitality spaces are special in that they are purely for gathering and largely for enjoyment. In that regard, they are functional but also bear a weight of responsibility—they are servants to our collective enjoyment. Creating special environments is no easy feat, and the key metric of success for me is how well the space performs commercially.

How do you ensure that these principles are effectively incorporated into your projects?

It is crucial to understand the client’s commercial focus and what we, as designers, need to deliver for that focus to be met. Clearly challenging the brief and ambition are always important factors in pushing the boundaries of possibility when embarking on any new scheme.

How do you approach creating unique and memorable experiences for guests in leisure and hospitality settings?

Before starting a project, it is important to understand the client’s brand, and if they don’t have one, to create one. We live in a world dominated by image and brand, and standing out in a world where design is widely understood is challenging. Our architectural response needs to be driven by both context and the client’s identity. Channelling both of these elements can be difficult, but for me, architecture is just one component in delivering a great experience, and hospitality/leisure draws upon multiple sectors of the design industry.

Can you share some examples of design features that enhance the guest experience?

Providing excellent ambulatory spaces that capture guests and offer them experiences beyond the main event is crucial. For example, in contemporary stadia design, the public realm, bars, restaurants, and commercial spaces that surround the stadium are critical for both guest experience and the commercial success of any scheme.

What are some common challenges you face when designing leisure and hospitality facilities?

These types of projects can often grow in scope and complexity, ending up far different from the initial brief. While this process is beneficial as it promotes healthy dialogue between us as designers and the client, who will inevitably run the scheme commercially, it is important to capture the ambition early on to avoid delays caused by changes.

Can you provide an example of a challenging project and how you addressed those challenges?

Generally speaking, clients aren’t always aware of what they want to achieve. They may come to us to help them develop a brief, understand the commercial benefits of doing certain things, or recognise the limitations of their existing facility. For me, as is often overlooked, investing time and money in a good brief-writing exercise is invaluable. Exploring ideas and the art of the possible before a pen hits paper, so to speak, is essential in preventing delays that may arise from working on an extensive feasibility study only to have to revisit it following a change in instruction.

How important is it to integrate local culture and context into your leisure and hospitality projects?

It is fundamentally important, even when dealing with a nationally established brand. More and more food and beverage chains are adopting a more local approach to their corporate identity. While threads of their brand are common, each unit across the nation provides an opportunity to express a nod to the locality and place. It is important that we celebrate place and identity in our work, as this fosters a culture of togetherness and provides outsiders with an insight into the locality.

How do you incorporate sustainability into your leisure and hospitality designs?

Clearly understanding the client’s approach to sustainability is integral—how far can they go, and how far do they want to go? Balancing commercial viability with strong sustainable credentials is challenging, but selling the merits of sustainable design approaches is a good starting point. Targeted approaches are another way in which clients can build or improve their assets over time. Incorporating plug-and-play elements, whether through M+E or fit-out, where infrastructure can be updated over time as costs allow, is another strategy.

What are some innovative solutions you’ve implemented to enhance sustainability and guest satisfaction?

While achieving full Passivhaus standards is often very difficult and costly, Passivhaus principles can still be used to embody the positive benefits a Passivhaus structure provides. Utilising key elements, rather than the entire standard, can go a long way towards improving the experience while also achieving sustainability targets without jeopardising the scheme’s viability.

What are some of the current trends in leisure and hospitality design that you find exciting?

I’m most fascinated by contemporary stadia and the benefits they can offer a city, particularly professional football stadia, which have traditionally been used only once every two weeks, for around 20 times a year. The changing view of stadia as multi-functional workhorses for communities is refreshing. Stadia now have the ability to host concerts, club nights, conferences, local democracy events, as well as multiple sports. They also have the power to inspire future generations to pursue careers in sport, often acting as an ever-present reminder on the skyline. The role of stadia as hubs for placemaking is also an area of fascination for me. I love the idea that regeneration can be driven through stadia, which is particularly evident in the greyfield sites surrounding Wembley.

How do you stay updated with these trends and incorporate them into your projects?

I read extensively across multiple publications, social media platforms, and YouTube. However, I also follow key figures within the sector whom I believe to be trendsetters rather than followers, including (but not exclusively) Tim Heatley of Capital & Centric, Sacha Lord, Roger Wade, Urban Splash, and until his untimely passing, the late Sir Howard Bernstein, a person I greatly admire and reference in my career.

How do you collaborate with clients, stakeholders, and other team members during the design process?

Constant dialogue and sharing of ideas are essential. I enjoy using more contemporary ways of communicating, rather than relying solely on emails or Teams. Digital collaboration increases our productivity and aids in the process of developing and refining ideas.

Can you describe how this collaborative approach has impacted the success of a project?

AI has greatly improved the way we collaborate, finding its way into everyday forms of ideation such as Pinterest, opening up the creative dialogue between ourselves as designers and our end users.

What do you see as the future of leisure and hospitality architecture?

I see this sector playing a huge role in the AI economy. As more of us work in the gig economy over the next decade, traditional work patterns will change—not just how we work, but when. Our economy will be increasingly geared towards leisure, placemaking, and hospitality over the next decade. We will collaborate differently, and we will play differently. Money will be made through enjoyment as AI takes over more traditional jobs. Some see this as a threat, but I believe AI will create more jobs than it takes, and I believe the leisure-based industries have a lot to gain from this shift. People will work more efficiently and have more time to invest in play.

What goals and aspirations do you have for our practice in the leisure and hospitality sector in the next few years?

I’m keen for Nottingham City Centre to become a destination for living, working, and playing in the age of AI. People can live anywhere now—they don’t need to be in major cities, and secondary cities have a major role to play in the next decade. Part of this involves rethinking the way we live—living more densely and closer together provides opportunities for more random and unusual ideas to spark, but it also provides the population density needed to keep leisure and hospitality businesses sustainable. I see Nottingham City Centre becoming a major hub for play and offering an exciting alternative for digital nomadic living to places like London and Manchester. I hope that CPMG will play an important role in the renaissance of Nottingham as a major cosmopolitan city in the global economy.

What advice would you give to architects who are aspiring to specialise in leisure and hospitality design?

Understand that no sector is exclusive in the modern age; one must be able to command a good understanding of how each sector interconnects with others. Quite often now, we are tasked with working across multiple disciplines when delivering a leisure-focused scheme.

What skills and experiences do you believe are essential for success in this field?

The ability to stay on top of trends and patterns is crucial, as is an understanding of how these are likely to reshape our work.