Accommodating Design: Times Square Hotel Tour

Explore how three recently revamped and ground up Times Square hotels are employing high-end art and innovative design to heighten guest experience on this guided tour. We take you into guest rooms, rooftop bars and sumptuous public rooms.  Starting at citizenM New York, hotel partner Noreen Chadha leads participants through this modern European boutique hotel’s approach to integrating design and art into every aspect of the hotel. At Paramount Hotel, Meyer Davis Studio talks about the historic hotel’s renovation history starting with Philippe Starck’s redesign and progressing to the imagination of the entire hotel from the guest rooms to the lobby to the event space. The tour ends at Hyatt Times Square with architect Peter Pelsinski of SPAN Architecture, discussing how the firm mined New York both thematically and literally for local designers, fabricators and materials to create a distinctive NYC space.

About the tour guides

Noreen Chadha is a partner in citizenM hotels and represents the brand in the US. Having studied contemporary art at Sotheby's Institute, she worked closely with citizenM's art curator and commissioned artists to finalize the collection in Times Square. Besides art, she has also been involved in numerous details surrounding the hotel, from music choices and food and beverage assortment, to the shoes that the ambassadors wear.

Principal Peter Pelsinski, RA LEED AP BD+C, is the recipient of the prestigious Architectural League of New York’s Young Architects Award as well as the American Institute of Architects Henry Adams Medal. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science from the University of Maryland and a Master of Architecture from Princeton University where he was the recipient of the Susannah Underwood Scholarship, the Pella Thesis Prize for outstanding design, and was a finalist for the SOM Traveling Fellowship. Prior to practicing with Karen Stonely as SPA from 1995 through 1998, he was a founding member of the award-winning collaborative Op’s (now LTL) leading multiple competitions and exhibitions, such as “The Pull of Beauty” with curator Kiki Smith and “Slipped Space” curated by Mark Wigley at the Storefront for Art and Architecture. Both were awarded “Best of Category - Environments” in ID Magazine’s awards issues of 1996 and 1994 respectively. He is the designer of the award-winning public art installation “Metroscopes,” permanently installed throughout the UM - St. Louis Metrolink light rail system. He was one of four members of the Student Leadership Team to formulate initial budgets and curriculum at the Spruce Street School from 2009-12 and is a chair of the “Friends Committee” for the Design Trust for Public Space. He taught at the NJ Institute of Technology School of Architecture, currently teaches at Princeton University, and participates on many architectural juries and reviews, most recently the AIA DC Un-built Awards and Brooklyn Builds Design Awards.

Meyer Davis Studio

Meyer Davis is a New York City‐based design boutique founded in 1999 by Will Meyer and Gray Davis. This award‐winning studio specialises in residential, hospitality, retail and workplace environments. The studio combines the principles of great design with a clear vision for the experience they seek to create, considering each new project as an opportunity to bring a unique and powerful story to life. By playing with space, form, texture, materials and light, a visual experience is developed with the intention to compel, provoke and inspire. The duo believes that great design works on multiple levels, weaving together bold design moves and striking details to ensure that when completed, each project makes an immediate and lasting impact. Not ones to chase trends, the designers are known to take creative risks. Meyer Davis enjoy seeking new and unexpected solutions to stimulate the senses and have valued lasting impact over flash since the day they first started. Both believe in the power of restraint, and their work has gone on to prove that intelligent subtraction often yields the greatest results. Meyer Davis Studio is interested in ideas, not ownership. The designers and their team are always on the lookout for new sources of inspiration and consistently adjust their learning curve to perpetuate growth and evolution.