If I hear “luxury pod” one more time…
Pod. Shepherd’s hut. Yurt.
These words are becoming swear words in my ears.
Not because nobody should enjoy staying in one. If a weekend in a shepherd’s hut makes you happy, wonderful. Enjoy it.
But why are we still presenting the same handful of ideas as the exciting future of hospitality?
Another field. Another curved roof. Another hot tub outside. Add a bathrobe, photograph it at sunset and call it luxury.
Come on. Where is the imagination?
Different outside. Familiar inside.
Occasionally, a building catches my attention. An interesting shape. An unexpected material. Something that makes me think: finally, someone has had an idea.
Then I look at the interior.
And there it is again.
The bed against the wall. The little kitchen. The predictable bathroom. A couple of chairs that could have come from almost anywhere.
All that possibility, reduced to somewhere to put the furniture.
The outside promised an experience. The inside delivered a room.
You spend hours inside these places. You wake up there. You sit, eat, talk, bathe, watch the weather and do absolutely nothing there. Surely that deserves at least as much imagination as the photograph used to sell the booking?
I want somewhere that makes me feel something.
Charlotte and I have stayed in some wonderful places over the years. I know the pleasure of arriving somewhere and feeling that somebody has thought about you before you got there.
But when I imagine choosing our next truly special escape, I struggle to think of somewhere that gives me that immediate feeling:
We have to go there.
Somewhere I would rearrange things for. Save for. Travel for.
I want to open a door and discover something I could not have predicted from the booking page.
A room shaped around the view. A bath that feels part of the landscape. Furniture that belongs to the architecture. Light that changes the atmosphere completely when evening comes.
Give me privacy, beauty and a little theatre. Give me something to remember.
At the upper end of hospitality, I believe there is an appetite for much more individuality than we are offering. People who have experienced beautiful hotels already need a reason to feel excited again.
Another expensive version of something familiar will not automatically provide it.
Have we become frightened of having an idea?
I sometimes look at what is being built and wonder whether everyone is looking at the same reference pictures.
Designers looking at designers. Architects looking at architects. Operators asking for something like the place down the road, because that appears to be working.
I understand the commercial comfort in familiarity.
But if the brief begins with “something like that”, how far can it really take you?
At some point, somebody has to stop collecting references and start making decisions of their own.
What should this place feel like?
What could happen here that could not happen somewhere else?
Why would a guest choose it, remember it and tell somebody about it?
Those are exciting questions. “How many identical units can we fit?” is a rather different conversation.
This is why I built NOCTURNE.
NOCTURNE is here, built, with a door you can open and an interior you can experience.
Its shape, mezzanine, marble bathroom, kitchen, folding table and individually designed details belong to the same idea. I wanted the experience to continue when you stepped inside.
And it is one example of what I can build.
The next commission should begin with its own setting, its own purpose and its own possibilities. It could be larger, quieter, stranger or more theatrical. That is the interesting part.
I am not interested in spending the rest of my life repeating one successful shape.
There is too much left to imagine.
So yes, I am tired of hearing about luxury pods.
Show me something that makes me forget the category altogether.
Build something worth leaving home for.
Max Stummer — Designer and creator, MXN DESIGN