Green is certainly a complicated issue when it comes to the necessities of serving lots of people at once.Acres of carpet, hundreds of chairs and bedframes, thousands of linens, window coverings and picture frames are just a small part of the resources consumed in creating a successful hospitality project. Hospitality design almost seems wasteful by definition.

But these projects are happening regardless, so the answer to “green” must be somewhere in reuse and recycle. Designers and architects in hospitality who are leading the way on green issues make great “adaptive” reuse of existing structures and building components and spec recycled materials. 

This solution is hedged on certain sides with specific challenges; maybe the existing building shell configuration is very inefficient in terms of energy usage, utilization of daylight and insulation. Or maybe the amount of energy it takes to recycle one thing into another is far greater than just “getting a new one”. 

Is solar, wind or energy from other self renewing source immediately available and accesible to a specific building? Or do I have to invest $50,000 plus to get green energy in my building and use up a bunch of resources in the process? 

These kinds of considerations keep conscious business owners awake at night, and don’t even take into account a whole other side of the “green” discussion, which is how these design decisions affect the end users, client, customer, guest whatever you want to call him or her. (We’ll use “client”).  

What about that moldy HVAC system pumping chilled air through your room in Vegas which should otherwise be *baking* 14 stories up under the desert sun? What about the deterioration and emision of certain chemicals used in the manufacture of hospitality products, (carpets for example, or drapes) and its impact on the interior air quality of your room? 

The health considerations of green thinking are enormous when you consider the sheer number of people clustered in hotels, restaurants, malls, casinos and other operating hospitality businesses, using those facilities to “live” (that is eat, sleep, eliminate and otherwise enjoy themselves) day after day after day.  

In the next post I’ll do an example, a consideration of a product used throughout the building, construction and hospitality related industries, picture framing included.