The New Era of Hotel Design: Beyond Beige

1 June 2026

At Clerkenwell Design Week, Harlequin hosted an inspiring conversation titled “The New Era of Hotel Design: Beyond Beige”. Moderated by Alys Bryan, Editorial Director at Design Insider, the panel brought together Claire Vallis, Design Director at Sanderson Design Group, Scott Maddux, Founder and Creative Director of Scott Maddux Studio, and Wiktoria Kopycha, Associate Design Director at OBMI.

Together, the panel explored how hospitality interiors are evolving to become more layered, residential, and emotionally engaging, while discussing the increasingly important role colour and pattern play in shaping meaningful guest experiences.

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BEYOND BEIGE

There is nothing inherently wrong with the colour itself; the issue arises when a space begins to feel emotionally beige. When interiors are overly compromised in an attempt to appeal to a universal audience, they risk becoming blank canvases devoid of character, identity, or emotional resonance. Beige often seeks to avoid emotion altogether, designed to feel broadly palatable and endlessly safe, yet in doing so, it can create forgettable experiences. Claire mused:

"After all who truly remembers a beige room?" - Claire Vallis, Design Director at Sanderson Design Group

Increasingly, people are searching for authenticity and a stronger sense of place, seeking interiors that feel connected to their surroundings and reflective of individuality, personality, and lived experience.

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THE POWER OF REPULSION

Understanding what you dislike can be just as creatively powerful as discovering what you love. Strong emotional reactions, whether positive or negative, create spaces with identity, character, and lasting impact.

Scott explained that a valuable starting point for understanding your personal palette and relationship with colour is often your wardrobe. The tones, textures, and combinations we instinctively choose to wear can reveal a great deal about how we naturally want to live and feel within a space. These are the colours we already live within emotionally.

A hotel or property should be seen as an extension of the self or its locale. And yet, many people dress colourfully and confidently, but hesitate when it comes to decorating interiors, often out of concern for safe commercial appeal pr fear of polarising guests. But interiors should feel personal, expressive, and lived in.

Scott further explored approachable ways to introduce colour into a project, explaining that even the smallest interventions can dramatically transform a space. For those more cautious with colour and pattern, personality can be introduced through thoughtful details such as painting a ceiling, adding wallpaper above a frieze or picture rail, lining the inside of a wardrobe, or incorporating contrast piping on soft furnishings.

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DESIGNING FOR WELLBEING

As Wiktoria discussed, we are increasingly overstimulated by modern life, both online and offline. Now more than ever, people are seeking spaces that support emotional well-being and provide a sense of calm. Interiors are no longer experienced purely visually, but through a full sensory lens: air quality, temperature, acoustics, aroma, texture, and even sleep quality all contribute to how a space makes us feel.

Designing with the nervous system and emotional wellness in mind is becoming increasingly essential, creating environments that restore, soothe, and support everyday living. Yet this does not mean spaces should be devoid of pattern or colour. Ultimately, people remember how a space made them feel, and increasingly we are seeking interiors that foster a deeper, more human connection.

Claire also highlighted findings from a research paper commissioned by Harlequin, in which Soojin Lee and Stephen Westland explore the science behind our perception of colour, examining what happens within the eye and brain, and how colour is experienced on an individual and deeply personal level. Colour is highly context dependent; cultural associations, lighting conditions, memory, emotion, and even variations in retinal photoreceptors all influence how we perceive and respond to it.

ARE WE ALL BEIGE'D OUT?

Has beige had its moment in the sun? As the cultural landscape has shifted following the pandemic, we have seen a renewed appetite for bolder, more expressive interiors. Increasingly, people are discovering their emotional frequency through colour, exploring the shades and palettes that resonate most deeply with them and reflecting this more authentically within their environments. Scott concluded:

"Colour is back on the cards" - Scott Maddux, Founder and Creative Director of Scott Maddux Studio

Perhaps the return of colour is not simply about aesthetics, but about emotion, identity, and our desire to create spaces that truly make us feel something.