The Vorna student hospitality design project

Academic Portfolio · Higher Diploma Level

Restaurants &
Hospitality Design

11 Weeks · 25 Credits · Studio-Based Learning

Course overview

Designing the full guest experience.

This studio guides students through the design of hotels, restaurants, and integrated hospitality environments. Operational thinking, guest experience, spatial planning, concept development, and technical resolution are brought together in one complete proposal.

Level: Higher Diploma
Duration: 11 Weeks
Format: Studio-Based Learning
Role: Lecturer · Brief Development · Studio Guidance · Assessment

Hospitality design framework

Experience and operation, designed together.

Students learn to balance the emotional quality of a guest journey with the practical systems that make hospitality spaces work.

Experience

Guest needs, comfort, atmosphere and memorable moments

Operations

Guests, staff, service and support working as one system

Planning

Programming, zoning, circulation and ergonomic decisions

Integration

Furniture, materials, lighting, equipment and custom details

Users & operational zones

One environment. Four connected journeys.

Clear relationships between public, semi-private, private, and service zones support an intuitive guest experience without compromising staff efficiency.

GuestPublic

Arrival, lobby, dining, leisure and social experience.

StaffSemi-private

Supervision, administration and day-to-day operations.

ServiceBack of house

Food, housekeeping, deliveries and discreet circulation.

SupportTechnical

Storage, equipment, utilities and essential infrastructure.

Research to spatial planning

A rigorous path from insight to layout.

Students move through evidence-based planning before resolving the visual language, ensuring that every design decision supports capacity, adjacencies, circulation, and experience.

Building AnalysisProgrammeRelationshipsZoningCirculationLayout

Teaching approach Lectures, case-study analysis, design workshops, individual tutorials, and progressive critiques connect operational understanding with conceptual and technical development.

Concept to experience

Ideas become spatial decisions.

Research is distilled into a narrative, visual language, material palette, and sequence of spaces that guests can understand and feel.

ResearchConcept NarrativeVisual LanguageSpatial TranslationGuest Experience

Project 01

Featured student work

The Vörna

A Norwegian hospitality concept inspired by the salmon lifecycle, translating movement, texture, colour, and landscape into a cohesive hotel and restaurant experience.

Project 02

Concept-led hospitality

Amour Hotel

A hotel and restaurant proposal interpreting the seven stages of love through art, curved forms, layered colour, and a sequence of distinct emotional settings.