Frederic Marq – Frederic Marq Design Inc. - Based out of Miami, Florida, Frederic is a leading authority on high end hotel designs, and has recently been quoted on sourcing creatively:

“One of the things that you can do is be a little more creative on finding your sources. … For a 455-room hotel in Miami that we’re finishing up, let’s look at the casegoods. I got quotations from China. It was about $1.5 million. Then, I got a quotation here in America, it was about $2.5 million. The owner of this property— it’s not a bank—I asked him, ‘Can we be more creative?’ And he said yes. We actually opened a mill shop on the fourth floor of the garage, we got a lot of little artisans from Miami, small contractors, small casegoods makers and the quote was $872,000. “So even if those guys didn’t really know how to make their budget perfect, and we had to pay $200,000 more, I’m still at $1 million or $1.1 million, and I can see the progression onsite. It was phenomenal, and at the end of the day, we did this with every single aspect of the construction … we squeezed every dollar, and then we went back and squeezed them again.”

Fredric Marq Grant Room

Fredric Marq Grant Room

All images courtesy of Frederic Marq Design Inc. www.fredericmarq.com

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Robert Polacek – Puccini Group – Robert is the vice president and creative director of  The Puccini Group in San Francisco, which manages innovative restaurant designs as well as social spaces within hotels. The group’s hotel spaces and restaurants come in a variety of styles, contemporary, classic or casual, but each design is magnificent. Robert suggests opening up an Auto Trend magazine and finding a wheel design for inspiration to get you to take the blinders off and look further into where you actually want to go.

Puccini Group Design

Puccini Domaso Dining Room Design

Photos courtesy of www.puccinigroup.com

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Brooke Pearsall – HVSCompass - Brooke is an award-winning interior designer with extensive professional design experience. Lead designer for numerous hotel renovation projects, she notices that as green becomes more popular designers are going back to basics with a large influence from nature.

HVS Compass Design

GW HVS Compass Design

Find more information about Brook e and HVS Compass at: www.hvscompass.com

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Jim Looney – Looney & Associates - With offices in Dallas and Chicago, Looney & Associates specializes in Accessibility/ADA, Design, Interior Architecture, Renovation, Space Planning, Specifications, Sustainable Design  for hotels among others. Jim’s company completed projects such as the Fairmount Scottsdale Princess, Westin Moana Surfrider and Grand Hyatt New York to name a few.

Looney Westin Riverwalk San Antonio

Looney Design

See many more of their project photographs at: www.looney-associates.com

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Todd-Avery Lenahan – ABA Design Studio - Todd was the principle designer behind a portion of the new Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas. There he designed the Escort Spa, the Encore Resort and the Broadway Theater at the Wynn. When asked about sustainability Todd-Avery had this to say:

“A lot of the focus is on materiality, but there’s an entire side of the process that has to do with construction, site dynamics, the way the building is assembled, and what happens to all the debris. That’s something that’s rarely talked about, but it’s actually a much bigger part of the entire process than just materiality. Ultimately, energy consumption is a huge part of it, but the actual site dynamics are an enormous part of it that a lot of our industry really has not dug into yet.”

Encore Wynn

Encore Spa Wynn Hotel

Find more excellent designs by ABA Design Studio here: www.abalv.com

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Thom Filicia – Thom Filicia Design -Thom Filicia is an expert in achieving a high-end look for his projects. As the designing firm for residential and hospitality and commercial assignments Thom has brought his unique aesthetics to each project.  Based in the heart of Soho in New York City, TFI has attracted a diverse roster of prestigious clients such as the exclusive design firm for the US Pavilion at the 2005 World’s Fair, and the design firm for the W Westwood Hotel in Los Angeles.

Thom Filica W Westwood

Thom Filica Cabanas

For more information about Thom Filicia Design visit their website: www.thomfilicia.com

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Jennifer Root – Benjamin West – Jennifer Root is the Senior Strategic Account Manager at Benjamin West and has also worked as an interior designer at HVScompass, so she knows High-End Hotel Designs very well to say the least. When asked about green renovations she had this to say:

“On the renovation end, we’re trying to recycle as much of the stuff that’s coming out of the hotel [as possible]. Recycling costs about the same as putting [things] in a landfill, so we’re trying to recycle much of our carpet pad, wall vinyl, lightbulbs, mattresses, fabrics, some of the upholstered seating—and we’re trying to do that so at least what’s coming out is not going into the landfill.”

Benjamin West – Westin LAX

Benjamin West – Westin LAX

To see more projects that Jennifer and Benjamin West have worked on visit their site: www.benjaminwest.com