Su Seam Panel Speaker for Saturday Indesign 2019
20th October 2019
12 October 2019 – Su Seam was invited to be one of the panel speakers for Saturday Indesign 2019, along with Maria Warner Wong from WOW Architects and Dr Hossein Rezai from Web Structures, for the topic: Tourist or Global Citizen? Designing Hospitality in the Climate-Change Era.
Narelle Yabuka, the editor of Indesignlive & Cubes magazine posed the question to the panels – “Hotels are adapting to sustainable practices in operational terms (to larger and lesser extends) but what can designers and architects do to create the conditions for conscious, low-impact hospitality experiences through the buildings and space we holiday in? Should we be designing for global citizens, not tourists? How?”.
In response to the question, Su talked about how boutique brands are stepping up and taking more initiatives in driving the action i.e. stop providing plastic toiletries, plastic water bottles and plastic straws, as compared to hotel bigger chains but they are catching up. Maria however added that reducing and removing plastic is not enough. The hotel can still be built out of the most unsustainable material, polluting the world and there are no negative consequences. She suggested adding penalty systems for the owners to prohibit non-green, polluting buildings.
Su also added that “sustainability has been short-changed. In the past, we were given more time to design. But now everything is pushed at a faster pace and because of that, the process is not thought through”. Dr Hossein also reminded the audience that if he were to start a hotel chain now, he will cater to the young kids rather than the shareholders’ needs, they are not the only stakeholders in this discussion.
