The brief
An exhibition stand for Onyx Hospitality Group that carries the ease of a beachfront lobby into a trade hall, designed around the brand’s own values. The stand had to present five hotel brands at once without any of them being lost, give the team somewhere to sit down with a visitor, and be built off site and installed in a single day.
What was built
As drawn, the stand is a long open-fronted bay divided by timber portals. Each portal is made of close-set vertical battens turned at an angle, so that the stand reads as solid from one direction and open from the other, and each frames a bay for one brand, Shama, OZO, Amari and Oriental Residence Bangkok, with the group's own sign raised above the end bay. Within each bay, framed photographs of rooms, pools and coastline hang on a plain white panel above a continuous low counter, which runs the full length of the stand and is lit from beneath so the floor glows. Round bar tables and low-backed stools stand in front of it, giving a line of informal meeting places rather than a single reception desk. The end bay is treated as a lounge: a fixed bench in timber, a screen set into a battened wall, upholstered chairs and a table. Behind the first portal a stepped timber counter serves as the welcome point and as brochure storage. The plan view shows the whole arrangement as a single rhythm of angled screens with the seating threaded between them.
Materials and finishes
Pale timber for every structural element, in battens, portals, counters and benches; white panelling behind the graphics; cream upholstery on the stools and chairs. The brand's aubergine appears only on the signs. Lighting is track-mounted on the portals and concealed beneath the counter.
Programme and cost band
Ten days to produce in the workshop, one day to install in the hall. An exhibition stand falls outside the studio's published per-square-metre ranges; its timber portals, counters and benches are priced as joinery, within the built-in range measured per linear metre.
