What if Brussels wasn’t just a city? What if Brussels was a host? What would his house look like? Full of opposites, just like Brussels. Het is Brussel et c’est Bruxelles. It’s brute but elegant. It’s busy but quiet and green. It’s grey but colorful. We massaged these opposites into an interior design for the public areas at Residence Inn by Mariott Diegem. This host gives you a warm welcome while making a design statement. He makes you feel at home.

Today’s hotel guests have high expectations. They have often traveled a lot and have been looking at perfect pictures by friends and influencers on social media. What is striking, is that guests are more and more inclined to choose local and small-scale boutique hotels. Platforms like Airbnb have become established players in the travel sector as well. It is a growing trend. They are loved for their personal approach, their local character and their hospitality. Bigger chains try to emulate the boutique feel, but more often than not, they lack a personal approach. None of that at this Residence Inn by Marriott in Diegem. We went all in for the public areas and turned a hotel in Diegem into a Brusselite host that welcomes you into his home.

This is very tangible in the choice of materials. For example, we created a brute look by building a wall out of concrete breezeblocks. Golden mirrors were placed behind that wall and become an elegant counterpart to the brute character of the stacked blocks.

In the layout of the lobby, we created a mixture between high traffic zones and areas where guests can retreat to read or work quietly. From a cozy loungy living room to a busy bar, a communal readingtable, a private office or a lovely terrace. For every mood there’s a right place.

Brussels can be grim and gray at times, especially in winter. But of course Brussels is packed with cultures and therefore color. In the Matongé neighborhood, you’ll see beautiful people with colorful robes parading through the streets. On the Airflats terrace the colorful pillows made from typical African Vlisco fabrics instantly stir up a summer feeling.

A personal approach is at the center of this design. In order to achieve that boutique feel in the hotel lobby, we handled this project as one big styling assignment. Those who settle down in one of the comfy sofas and have a closer look around, will discover Brussels and its surroundings in an atypical manner. Books like Brussels Kitchen, Ugly Belgian Houses and Belgian Solutions in fact form the narrative of the invisible host that takes guests to the better local hotspots and shares atypical facts from Belgian soil.

We did not want to fall into clichés. Therefore there are no posters of the Atomium and no skylines of Brussels on the walls of the Residence Inn by Marriot in Diegem. Instead, you can enjoy art by Brussels residents Bieke Buckinx, Maarten Groven en Kelly De Block, all members of the Brussels collective called Stadsgardeville.

Bieke and Kelly focus on the everyday ‘ugliness’ that is so characteristic for Brussels. Bieke Buckinx paints scenes and objects that can be seen every day in many streets of Brussels. Disposable cameras, washing machines, night shops and even a dead fish star in her paintings in glorious leading roles. Art with a nice dose of humor and irony, the beautiful in the banal.

Kelly De Block has a knack for irony as well, creating plates that shamelessly reference the old blue tableware we know from the neighbor to the north. Instead of the classical Dutch themes, her plates feature scenarios typical for Brussels, including ugly beautiful things like trash bags, roadblocks and pigeons.

In his work Maarten Groven examines the sometimes absurd architecture in Brussels. The absurdist Brussels charm as a chaotic foundation and endless source of inspiration. The visual work by Maarten found at Airflats unites the fragile character of a model with powerful statements.