With the UK road map, outlined by the government, showing signs of recovery, our columnist Joel Butler unveils the six discussion points that HIX Event will focus on when it welcomes the design community to London in November…
A week ago, I return home from dropping my daughter off at school for the first time in five months – a milestone that feels like that first daffodil head springing up in March. You knew it was going to happen, nevertheless the joy it brings is palpable.
You would have thought that a week later the novelty would have passed. It hasn’t. So please excuse my fanciful prose and humour me, allow me to muse on the wonderful parallels between our literal and metaphorical Spring times. I’ve just had a coffee, you see, and as I said I’m not having to struggle through primary school math today. Here goes…
“And right on cue, indoor hospitality appears with its luscious shades of interiors, drinks and meals are scoffed and slurped with grateful abundance.” – Joel Butler, Co-Founder, HIX Event.
As the cherry blossom of a nation’s beer garden falls into its half-full pint glass, design showrooms bloom at once, Clerkenwell, Chelsea, Angel, Wigmore Street open up in unison. And right on cue, indoor hospitality appears with its luscious shades of interiors, drinks and meals are scoffed and slurped with grateful abundance. Ideas, real conversations, and even more ideas climb the walls like the illustration of Max’s room in ‘Where the Wild Things Are’, and then we celebrate the opening ceremony of a youthful summer, the full wonders of life sway and dance with a gentle breeze as all social restrictions cease.
I really can’t wait for the above things to happen across the UK, the rest of Europe and around the world. We’ve designed HIX around the way people are likely to feel once varying restrictions have been lifted from their lives and I’ll be exploring these topics within this column in the run up to the event in November.
The pandemic has been a challenging time for all and a truly horrific one for so many. The six discussions that define HIX 2021 will recognise this, often starting in a place of anxiety and darkness. With help from our speakers, contributors, and audience we’ll then journey towards opportunity and something better.
Our six discussions focus on how hotels can develop and design around their guest’s feelings in a post-pandemic world.
- Financial Anxiety towards meaningful value
- Solitude towards shared experience
- Masks, gels and distance towards safety
- Misinformation towards truth
- An existential office dilemma to the hotel as our brave new workplace
- Collective mental and physical health pressure towards self-compassionate design
Between now and November, we’ll invite discussion, debate, opinion and solutions to these challenges. For now, though, I’ll have another quick coffee before school finishes.
Main image credit: HIX Event
