The Hilton Hotel Schiphol Airport is located near Amsterdam’s international airport. With its diagonal patterned facade, curved corners and strategic location, the building is a recognisable icon at the airport and is prominently visible from the motorway.

From its spacious plinth, the cube-shaped hotel is rotated 45 degrees to establish a dynamic position. Rounded corners accentuate this dramatic effect so that the hotel contrasts strikingly with its neighbouring, rectilinear buildings.

The entrance, reception and restaurant are located on the ground floor, while the conference centre on the first and second floors adjoins a passageway that leads to the airport. As the heart of the hotel, the impressive atrium has a clear identity featuring a 42-metre-high glass ceiling. All the white elements, especially the light horizontal balustrades, bounce daylight deep into the building.The atrium also serves as an open meeting space and plays an important role in the building’s energy-saving climate concept. Outside air is filtered before being channelled into the atrium, where it is preconditioned for the rooms. Timber used as slats, frames and cladding lends the interior a natural yet luxurious feel.

The facade pattern unites the three elements of the complex – plinth, tower with hotel rooms, Schiphol passageway – and is composed of three forms of prefabricated composite panels: straight, curved and arched.

Their arrangement forms a seemingly random pattern with a subtle gleam and texture. The combination of glass with grey and white panels results in a striking diamond-shaped pattern that is immediately recognisable from a distance.

Size: 43,150 m2 Status: Completed 2013 - 2015 Address: Schiphol Boulevard, Schiphol, the Netherlands Client: Schiphol Hotel Property Company

Programme: Hilton Hotel with 433 rooms, meeting and conference centre of 1,700 m2 with 23 meeting rooms, restaurants, health club, swimming pool, meeting centre, company rooms, lounge areas, a ballroom for 600 guests and a parking garage with 138 parking spaces.

In order to capture all considerations from a design and operational point, the lighting for the Hilton Hotel Schiphol was looked at in its entirety as a ‘Masterplan’ to ensure all areas flowed as one. The architecture and interiors establish this but the lighting design reinforces this throughout the day and night. It was essential that the lighting design was integrated and coordinated with the design team Mecanoo Architects and HBA The Gallery, London and operator to ensure that a seamless and cohesive scheme was met for both aesthetic merit and operational needs as well as provide comfort for a diverse demographic of traveller to this airport hotel. The Client, Schiphol Real Estate was also dedicated to achieving a stunning world class airport hotel with the team. The M&E engineers Deerns from The Netherlands provided essential technical support and coordination throughout the project as did Hilton’s Design team.

The primary design approach was to limit the down lighting and explore the overall ‘architectural story’ by integrating lighting into key interior and architectural features such as the ‘ribbon’ wall which connects the Reception, Lobby , Bar and Restaurant throughout the ground floor spaces utilising backlighting and floating of the perforated ‘ribbon’ wall.

The Atrium is central to the whole hotel from the Ground Floor Entrance Lobby, Restaurant and Bars, through the Business facilities and Spa at levels 1 & 2 and up to the Executive Lounge towards the top of the building. The atrium roof lighting provides a subtle canopy of colour which bathes the atrium walls in a soft wash of light adopting the subtle colours of dusk at sunset. The tiny 500No. 0.7w LED up lights to the copper wall vertical strip details provide a backdrop foil to the internal guest rooms with an added sparkle within the atrium roof light.

This is where the Lighting ‘Masterplan’ helped to plan the use of lighting technology which was driven towards the use of LED lighting. The scheme utilises 95% LED technology but still maintains the ambiance and warmth you would expect. All lighting is dimmable so the transition from day to night is carefully controlled. This is particularly important with the huge atrium space and other areas which benefit from natural light during the day.

Concealed linear lighting within ceiling and wall base details ‘float’ the walls within ceiling coves and balustrade skirting and step details to lighten the walls with concealed lighting from the ground floor areas through the central Atrium and guest corridors; again to reduce the need for downlights and keep the ceiling and walls clean.

Photography courtesy of Hufton & Crow Photography