Cruise & Ferry Interiors 2021

7 2 with retailing along the way. It’s a very special area of the ship.” Transitions and the sense of arrival have been thoughtfully considered throughout the vessel. “Variety is very important but a key role for the folks on my design team has been to really keep an eye on the transition spaces,” says Gonzalez. “There’s a number of different ways that we do that, especially through the design firms that we work with – for example, by asking each of them to automatically work at least 10 metres outside each of the areas that they are responsible for, so that we can see how they ideally envisage the transitions and arrival into the spaces that they’re designing for us.” Through this collaboration, Gonzalez and her team found the ideal links to bridge interior spaces and optimise passenger flow through the ship. “We don’t want our passengers to feel a very strong difference between where one area starts and stops, so we work very hard to get that to flow pretty seamlessly,” she explains. “Of course, at the same time each venue must stand out with its own unique personality and purpose immediately clear. “We work through all of the digital files in one comprehensive view of the entire deck – thinking it all through in the eyes of the customer, what they see and what we anticipate they would feel as they’re going through the space. This allows us to put our fingers on spots that we think might be a little bit more jarring than others and consider how we can smooth it out. It’s an important but labour-intensive process. Deep collaboration with the whole team is a fundamental necessity in finding a balanced and harmonious design.” Virtual reality and modelling tools are especially important in the first few ships in a series but as the team became more intimate with the Quantum Class, personal knowledge reduced this dependency. “By the time we reached Odyssey of the Seas we could see her clearly inside our heads so virtual reality and modelling was only really important for the areas where we were doing something a little bit different like the suite experience, Playmakers and SeaPlex,” says Gonzalez. “It was also useful as we worked through the development of the interiors, but in a very targeted way.” Architectural lines, planes and focal points are acutely considered throughout Odyssey of the Seas’ interior and deck spaces. “The notion of vanishing points and focal points are very important because of how they relate to the perception of distance and where your eye is going,” says Gonzalez. “They are most apparent in the theatre where sight lines are framed on the proscenium, or in the Royal Promenade where you are led from one end to the other.” Good interior architecture and design is an expert craft, exceedingly well executed throughout the ship. “Sometimes we intentionally disrupted a vanishing or focal point to overcome any sense that something was going on too long or too far,” says Gonzalez, noting that this may be achieved through the introduction of a corner in a cabin corridor. “We were equally wary of them becoming too short and making guests feel overwhelmed by everything being too close. We’ve always prioritised creating an idealised feeling of spaciousness so clearing these things out is an important step.” Architectural planes are similarly well planned. “We really put a lot of emphasis into the idea of first impressions – the first impression when you board the ship, when you open your stateroom door or when you first enter a venue,” says Gonzalez. “The power of feeling that you can evoke on delivering a first impression can be mood changing, allowing you to set up the ideal mindset to fully embrace the space. This all ties back to transitions – sometimes we wanted to achieve a very strong visual first impressions and other times we were seeking something much more relaxed.” Of course, adds Gonzalez, the second, third and later impressions are impactful too, as is the journey through the visual planes within each venue. “We hope passengers will find that the INTERIOR V IEW “ Our ambition is to be at the leading edge of ship and hospitality design and delivery”