A Guide to Designing Hostel Spaces

Designing a successful hostel begins with an understanding of who is going to be using it. Good design goes beyond aesthetics and deals with how users behave and interact within a space.

The central objective of a hostel is to provide a friendly place to stay. Today most travellers seek adventure, local culture and community while on the road. They look for personalized experiences and connections with like-minded travellers from diverse backgrounds. Your space to these travellers is, therefore, more than just a bed. It is a space to make friends and new memories. If the design of your hostel encourages people to talk to each other, it would have achieved its primary objective.

Communal design, as a concept, centres around encouraging communities to form and coexist within spaces. For example, when large tables, as opposed to four-seater configurations, are used, travellers are prompted to eat together.

It is also necessary to make your space durable and backpacker proof. Most nights, if your hostel is doing it right, things will not follow a set script, and there may be some unpredictable circumstances. The design challenge then is to have your hostel look as good as new when the next set of guests show up. Your goal, therefore, should be to create a space which is unbreakable, easy to clean and easy to repair. Replacing everything within a few months is financially unsustainable. So as far as backpacker proofing goes, the best rule to follow would be “ when in doubt, leave it out.”

FINDING YOUR STYLE

Finding inspiration to design is easy, its everywhere! A trap to avoid is designing with current trends and styles. While they may look aesthetically appealing, nothing speaks outdated faster than passing trends. Aim for a timeless base, with fun interchangeable moving accessories to keep things fresh.

One way to get started is to determine your style. Ask yourself, how you want the space to feel? Try and define it through keywords; such as Traditional, formal, local, elegant, Playful, minimal, luxury, etc. Once you know the kind of vibe you’re looking to create at your hostel, Pinterest is a good starting point. Pinterest is to design what computers are to technology. Create a board and collect ideas that you would like to explore at your hostel.

SPACE PLANNING

Space planning is key to good design. Here are some ideas for various spaces within your hostel.

LAYOUT PLAN IDEAS

• Common areas — If you design a great common area, half the job’s done. Invest the largest chunk of your budget here. People use the dorms to dump their stuff and crash. They would much rather hang out at the common area provided it is nice and comfortable.
• Kitchen — Not a critical requirement if there are enough food options around. However, if you are in a remote location, make sure that your kitchen is functional and stocked. If you don’t have a kitchen, try and set up a counter where people can make tea, coffee and some basic meals.
• Dorms — Your dorms should be as comfortable as possible. Use all your senses to design (all your rooms but specifically) dorms. Does it smell funny, is it too loud, is it comfortable and does it look neat and tidy? Functionality and comfort should always trump design ideas. Whenever possible, try and keep them as small as possible. It is not fun sleeping in a 30-bed dorm (try it out if you haven’t).
• Bathrooms — The golden ratio is 8:1 to balance; this is 8 dorm beds to 1 bathroom. Do not exceed this at any cost. If you have the luxury of going for a 4:1 dorm to bathroom ratio, do it. The larger your dorm gets, the more critical it is for you to have stalls within your bathrooms to allow for simultaneous usage.

PRACTICAL DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS

Hostel design is dependent on your budget, your brand positioning strategy and your style. However, before going wild with your design ideas, here are a few practical considerations that you should take into consideration.

• Charging points — In this day and age, most people travel with at least 3 chargeable gadgets per person — camera, cellphone and laptop/tablet. Since these gadgets are so expensive and take such a long time to charge, you must have charging points in all common areas and rooms. Factor this in during the construction phase of your implementation to minimize the rework (painting, etc.). Many hostels have charging points inside the lockers, and guests LOVE them for it. If possible, this would be great.
• Lockers — No matter how small or friendly your hostel is when guests share a dorm room, lockers are a must-have. The bigger the lockers, the better because people get to lock up their entire backpack, which results in peace of mind for your guests. In city hostels, due to the lack of space in rooms, you can customize your beds with lockers beneath the bunks.
• Bedside shelves and bedside light — This is a nice to have for people staying in bunk beds. Again, this should be well designed to ensure that it is safe (people don’t bump their heads against it). If the shelf and light don’t connect to your bunk beds but are installed directly on the adjacent wall, then all the wiring should also be put in place during the construction phase.
• Privacy curtains — This is a highly debatable feature. Although backpackers love privacy curtains (private room at the price of a dorm), the maintenance cost is too high. Your curtains will have to be regularly cleaned because a dirty set of curtains could destroy the entire experience of a guest. In addition to this, it could also alienate guests from each other, which is counterproductive given that your main objective is to encourage interaction.
• Television — Similar to the point above, television is a conversation killer. There’s always that one person who turns on the news too loud and pisses off the entire hostel. Sometimes people would rather leave than confront another obnoxious guest. A solution would be to have a movie room in a separate area or have designated movie days where the whole hostel can get together. The same is true for an x-box system in your common room.

To summarise, be different from other hostels. Try and create an experience which no one else is offering. In order to create a unique experience for users, you must factor in their needs and balance them with the intention of your hostel. Communal design, with a focus on creating social spaces, utility and aesthetic appeal is a balance which you should strive to achieve.