Hilton Embassy Suites

The brief

Hilton Embassy Suites is a hotel in Makkah, within the Thakher City Development, with 392 two-room suites on a site of approximately 3,849 m². NoVi's commission covers the architectural design, façade design development, hospitality planning and exterior design, together with coordination with the project's consultants.

The challenge

An all-suite hotel on a compact site is a planning puzzle. Every suite needs two well-proportioned rooms, daylight and a clear route from the lifts, while public areas, back-of-house and building services must fit within a tight footprint. In Makkah, hotels also have to handle arrivals that concentrate around peak seasons, so entrance, circulation and the building's presence on the street need particular care.

Our approach

Hospitality planning sets the suite layouts and the relationship between guest, public and service areas before the envelope is fixed. The architecture and façade are then developed around that plan, so the exterior expresses the suites behind it, and the exterior design is resolved together with the building rather than after it.

Coordination with the consultant team keeps structure and building services aligned with the architecture as the design develops, so that the hotel plan, the suites and the façade that expresses them remain one consistent design from the first layouts onwards.