Guests control the climate in their rooms
All citizenM images: Richard Powers
citizenM
citizenM is an international chain of exclusive hotels on several continents. The hotels are unique concept hotels with a very high standard of comfort. The business idea is to both own the actual property and run the hotel operations. This allows for sophisticated design and innovative modular construction methods. citizenM calls it “Smart thinking”. The rooms are well-planned and expertly designed down to the tiniest detail – with the climate in each room individually controlled.
An out-of-the-ordinary challenge
Hotel guests should be able to select the temperature themselves and energy consumption should be as low as possible. Moreover, the hotel should offer the same high standard of comfort no matter where in the world it is located, whatever the geographic circumstances with regard to temperature and humidity. The rooms are small and compact, with a fully-glazed wall by the bed and no radiators along the walls. The climate system has to provide both heating and cooling. It also has to be extremely compact and must meet exacting technical standards. There must not be any drafts around the bed and no disturbing sounds either. How do you solve all of this?
We got the idea of creating the perfect indoor climate that guests can control themselves to give them a positive experience of the hotel.Menno Hilberts, Design & Construction Manager, citizenM
Customised solution
Thanks to close and intensive cooperation between Swegon and citizenM’s architects, it was possible to find a solution that met citizenM’s exacting requirements. The flexible and reliable solution allows the hotel guests to individually adjust the indoor climate of their rooms, and is energy-efficient too. This solution was tailor-made to meet citizenM’s requirements and makes it possible to offer exactly the same high standard of comfort in each new hotel that is built, anywhere in the world. In this way, citizenM has a ready-to-operate, optimal solution that saves resources when planning new hotel projects, since it makes things easier for everyone, from the architects, construction contractors and sub-contractors to the fitters, installers and end users.
How do you know it will be right?
By building a complete hotel room in laboratory settings, it was possible to test the ventilation system “for real” so that every single detail could be carefully assessed and analysed. Every conceivable situation that the climate system might have to deal with was recreated inside the lab. These included: Different seasons and climates, every possible variation of sunlight, and all the various preferences and behaviours of hotel guests. It is possible to create and test basically every kind of condition and user scenario in Swegon’s high-tech laboratory. However, what is needed the most is specialist expertise to interpret the results and use them to create the optimal climate system.
Products
A selection of the products used for CitizenM.
The solution is to install centrally located GOLD air handling units with Paragon comfort modules in each room. Special equipment was developed for the citizenM hotels to enable individual climate control for each room.