Until mid-20th century, a hotel's aesthetic was unique and customized to each location - either by design, as in the case of luxury properties built at the beginning of the 20th century, like the Waldorf Astoria or St. Regis, or by default, in the case of humbler regional hotels, motels and inns. The trend toward design standardization started in the 1950s in North America. Middle class prosperity mixed with modern interstate highways and cars designed for longer trips fueled an increase in leisure and business travel. But to offset the boundaries being pushed in personal exploration, travelers desired predictability in lodging. READ MORE

The mission of hotels has evolved over the years, from simply providing guests with a comfortable, safe place to sleep to offering a destination that provides much more than shelter. At today's hotels and resorts, visitors have a place to conduct business, enjoy good food and drink, socialize and escape from life's everyday pressures. But travelers often seek something more now, and a new trend has distinctly emerged. Many visitors no longer want to escape. They want to explore and dive into the local atmosphere. Today's travelers desire to experience the culture, attractions, food and neighborhoods of a destination more than ever before. READ MORE

In the last two decades, the boutique hotel revolution has stolen the show and has birthed an abundance of small batch hospitality concepts that have scaled out and fundamentally changed the way hotels look and behave. The Kimptons and W's have blazed the trail for FB&E hotels like the Ace and the Standard. European darlings like Citizen M have dared to dream small by making micro-rooms sexy with unapologetic modernism and vibrant, public spaces. Outliers, like the 21c Museum Hotels, exemplify the sort of programmatic innovation that begs the question - are hotels just hotels anymore? READ MORE

Back in 2001, Saunders Hotel Group, LLC (SHG) and Irish hotel group Jurys Doyle commissioned The Architectural Team, Inc. (TAT) to design a luxury hotel project in Boston - but it wasn't to be a tall, glassy tower. Rather, our task was to renovate, restore, and update a classic structure that had been a part of the city's fabric for nearly a century: the former Boston Police Department headquarters. Located in the historic and trendy Back Bay neighborhood, this beautiful seven-story Italian Renaissance Revival building rendered in limestone dates back to 1925. READ MORE

Big data, more than a buzzword, has by now become a conundrum that we, consumers and providers of information, try to crack and make sense of it. Essentially, we know that data is becoming larger with wider access to complex algorithms and connections. The onion metaphor - the peeling back of many layers - can be used to reflect the multifaceted aspects of machine learning technology. These swaths of data or rather layered strings of data sets turn these complex entities into a more accurate view of customer demand for the hotelier. READ MORE