The Claridges Redevelopment
Concept, approvals strategy, asset plan and business case for the next iconic luxury hotel of New Delhi.
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The development guide.
How a hotel is planned, from the first idea to opening night: ten steps in a fixed order, six gates, and the working figures to test a programme.
Ten steps, in order
The order matters. A plan drawn before the concept note acquires its concept by accident, and its costs by surprise.
The concept note
One line that a guest could repeat without using the word hotel. The land walked at dawn, at noon and at dusk. What each sense will meet: sight, sound, scent, touch, taste, time and place.
Then two harder pages: what we will not build, and the numbers the idea must survive.
Bubble diagrams
Two drawings before any plan. The first follows the guest from the gate to the room, with a note in each bubble: a first moment of wonder at the threshold, a greater one at the view, the peak in the room.
The second shows the working building: which functions must touch, and which must never. No goods route crosses a guest route. No plant room touches a guest room.
The adjacency matrix
Every pair of spaces is marked essential, desirable, neutral or undesirable. The space with the strongest pull sits at the centre of its side: the lobby for the guest, the kitchen for the back of house.
Every undesirable pair gets a buffer between them. An essential adjacency that the plan cannot honour is written down as a risk.
The room on its bay
Rooms are planned on a structural bay. Ours is 6.1 by 10.7 metres, about 65 m². A king room takes one bay, a junior suite one and a half, a one-bedroom suite two.
Suites make up 15 to 25 percent of the rooms. At least 2 percent are accessible, and 10 to 15 percent connect. The bay is frozen at the second gate, because everything above and below it depends on it.
The schedule of areas
One row for every space: zone, name, level, number, length, breadth and clear height. Area, people, seats, air volume and cooling load all follow from those.
Size the rooms first. Size the public rooms from the rooms. Size the back of house as the sum of what it serves, and the plant from the cooling load. Never size the back of house as a percentage.
Four tests of proportion
- Built area per room, against the tier you are building
- The share taken by guestrooms (50 to 65 percent in a resort), public areas (25 to 35) and back of house with plant (15 to 22)
- Restaurant seats per room: 3.5 to 5.5 in a resort, 2.5 to 4 in a city hotel
- Event space per room: 4 to 8 m² in a resort, 10 to 14 in a city hotel
A figure outside its range is a decision to be taken openly. It is not a number to hide.
Air and cooling, by volume
A first estimate of plant comes straight from the schedule of areas. It is replaced by the engineer’s calculation at design development, and every difference is explained.
Airflow in m³ per hour = area × clear height × air changes per hour.
Cost from choices
The cost plan is built from the same schedule: walls from perimeter and height, finishes from the finish chosen for each room, waterproofing wherever a room is wet. Change a finish and the cost changes with it.
Briefs
Each restaurant, each function room and the spa gets its own written brief before design: the concept, the capacity, the area, the equipment and the standard it must meet.
Six gates
Gate Name What must be true Gate 1 Concept and charter The concept note and the project charter are signed. Gate 2 Feasibility and programme The schedule of areas and the feasibility agree. The room bay is frozen. Cost known to within 25 percent. Gate 3 Concept design Drawn areas within 3 percent of the programme, zone by zone. Every drift logged. Cost to within 15 percent. Gate 4 Design development A mock-up room built and slept in, twice. The engineer’s calculations replace the estimates. Cost to within 10 percent. Gate 5 Tender and release Contracts let against complete drawings. Gate 6 Pre-opening readiness The 52-week opening checklist closed. Six rooms of each type tested for sound. Engineering audit passed. Nothing passes a gate on a promise. Either the test is met or the drift is logged with its cost.
Programme by tier
Built gross square metres per room. Benchmarks by tier, for testing proportion.
Built area per room, by zone.
| Tier | Arrival | Rooms | F&B | Events | Wellness | Back of house | Plant | Total m² |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Luxury villa resort | 6 | 165 | 12 | 8 | 15 | 24 | 8 | 238 |
| Luxury resort | 4.5 | 110 | 10 | 8 | 12 | 20 | 7 | 171.5 |
| Luxury city hotel | 3 | 75 | 7 | 14 | 6 | 16 | 5 | 126 |
| Upper-upscale resort | 3 | 80 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 16 | 6 | 127 |
| Upper-upscale city hotel | 2 | 55 | 5 | 12 | 4 | 13 | 4 | 95 |
Area programme
A first estimate of built area by zone for a hotel of a given size and tier, before any drawing exists.
Result · example figures until you change them
Arrival and lobby—
Guestrooms and corridors—
Food and beverage—
Events—
Wellness—
Back of house—
Plant—
Built area per room—
Total, square feet—
Total built area—
Function room capacity
How many people a room holds in each layout.
Result · example figures until you change them
Usable area—
Theatre—
Classroom—
Boardroom or U-shape—
Standing reception—
Formal dinner—
Banquet rounds—
Working figures
Selected figures from the Excelsior build standards. The full standards, the planning workbook and the development manual are shared with clients.
| Element | Standard |
|---|---|
| Arrival | Porte-cochère 9 × 15 m with 4.3 m clear. Lobby at least 1 m² per room, 4.5 to 5 m high, with the view on axis |
| Lifts | One guest lift for every 75 rooms, never fewer than two. Wait under 30 seconds |
| The room | A luxury city room of 55 m²: sleeping 24, sitting 12, bath 10, closet 4.4, vestibule 4. Clear height 3.0 m in a city, 3.5 to 4 m in a resort |
| Silence | NC 25 in the room. STC 55 between rooms, 60 to lifts, bars and back of house. Tested in six rooms of each type |
| Restaurants | Net area per cover: all-day dining 2.0 m² city and 3.0 resort, speciality 2.5, fine dining 2.8, bar 3.5. Breakfast able to seat 70 percent of the house within two and a half hours |
| Events | Pre-function space 35 to 40 percent of the ballroom. Storage 15 percent. Ceiling 5 m in smaller rooms, rising to 8 m in the largest |
| Spa and fitness | Treatment room at least 30 m², couple’s room 60. Fitness at least 112 m² for every 100 rooms, with 3.2 m clear |
| Pools | At least 1.5 m² of water per room. Deck 2.75 m² per room, with 1.5 to 2 loungers per room and 40 percent of them shaded |
| Plant | Fresh air 10 litres a second per person. Two chillers and a standby above 120 tons of cooling. Two days of water stored on site |
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