Zoku hotel paris

More home than hotel feeling

ZOKU has moved into the top three floors of the Parisian "stream building" (Philippe Chiambaretta Architectes) with an innovative combination of classic hotel apartments and hip home offices. At the heart of the hotel are the shared, high-quality workspaces and lounge areas. ZOKU has neither a reception desk nor the typical back office for employees only - instead, the open floor plan accommodates many service stations for self-organization and different zones where guests can either retreat and work or meet each other. This also includes the "Living Room Bar" or the "Living Kitchen", which is much closer to a cozy eat-in kitchen than a classic restaurant. These areas are also open to locals so that city dwellers and long-term guests can find each other more easily.

On the top floor, around 300 m2 will be used as a productive urban garden for growing vegetables and as a chill-out zone. From here, the hotel is accessed via a cozy lobby that resembles an "arena for modern work": co-working takes place at long tables, separate boxes are available for undisturbed telephone calls, there are niches for concentrated work and zones with comfortable armchairs for informal meetings. Two meeting rooms and an event room can also be used individually. Floor-to-ceiling windows offer a breathtaking panoramic view of the city. 

Room acoustics made of LIGNO® for open floor plan concepts

In all common areas, walls and seating niches are clad with LIGNO® acoustic panels. In new buildings as well as in conversions and renovations, they dampen reverberation even in high, large rooms and/or acoustically compensate for reverberant materials such as concrete, glass, ceramics and stone. The panels are made of natural wood through and through, and the integrated acoustic absorbers are made of wood fiber. Their naturalness fits in with the healthy living, future-oriented concept of ZOKU.

Architect Maarten de Geus from Concrete says: "Good acoustics are important in every room, depending on its use. A workspace for concentrated work functions differently to a lively bar. If the acoustics don't match the use of the space, problems arise". And the planner goes on to explain: "Minor acoustic problems can sometimes be alleviated by using soft, sound-absorbing materials such as curtains, carpets and upholstery. At ZOKU Paris, however, very different scenarios take place in shared areas. More effective measures were required to prevent disruption. With Lignotrend acoustic panels for the wall cladding, we were able to meet these individual requirements very well."

Creating modern feel-good spaces with knot-free silver fir wood

For business nomads, the world becomes a workplace and work becomes a lifestyle: wherever they arrive, they expect homely, inviting places to work and live. Wood is an excellent design material for this. Maarten de Geus confirms this: "By using natural wood, the room design appears warm, light and natural. We opted for Black Forest silver fir for the Lignotrend elements because the light wood not only supports our color concept, but is also the perfect background for the lighting design. The elegant wall cladding gives the room warmth and comfort and goes very well with the materials of the colorful upholstered furniture, the tiles and the neutral white ceilings." The surfaces are finished in flame-retardant quality.

By choosing the manufacturer's "nature" skirting board profile, the planners were able to support the dynamic effect of their interior design even better: The arrangement of irregularly wide slats makes the joint pattern look particularly lively here.

LIGNO® acoustic panels: design variety and more...

To ensure a recognizable and consistent experience across all locations, the design approach for all ZOKU hotels follows the principles of brand design. Nevertheless, the interior designers have the opportunity to incorporate unique looks tailored to each city or location. The LIGNO® acoustic panels offer many creative design options, as they are available in different types of wood and with various profile variants and surface treatments. This makes it possible to create naturally healthy, aesthetically pleasing and at the same time melodious rooms with an individual design.

"The world doesn't need more things, it needs smarter solutions," is the ZOKU idea. An approach that Lignotrend also follows in the development of its functional and extremely material-efficient real wood products. In addition to distinctive design and good room acoustics, the panels also bring a good indoor climate and healthy indoor air into the hotel. Their ecological and building biology quality is confirmed by certifications from natureplus® and the Institute for Building Biology IBR. This means that with Lignotrend, modern hotel construction can not only be innovative in terms of design, but also holistically environmentally friendly and responsible.