The internationally renowned Toronto Marriott Markham is a 192,000 square-foot luxury hotel, illuminating its community, a vibrant and flourishing area just north of one of North America’s largest cities. Developed and operated by the Remington Group, the LEED Silver building seamlessly integrates features for hotel guests, residents of the neighboring condominiums, business individuals, and public groups from all cultures and disciplines. A central hub genuinely offering both hospitality and opportunity, it truly is the heart of the surrounding neighborhood.
Rethinking The Future Awards 2020
Second Award | Hospitality (Built)
Project Name: Toronto Marriott Markham
Studio: II BY IV DESIGN
Location: Canada
Team: Keith Rushbrook and Dan Menchions
Creativity, collaboration, and ingenuity are Marriott’s brand values that are celebrated in the design. Marriott’s hospitality goes above and beyond, striving to nurture an environment for guests to imagine, conceive, and live the stories that make each of their journeys unique. This narrative is reflected in the design, dedicated to move and motivate through inspiring applications of colors, textures, forms, and finishes.
The most outstanding part of this project was the designer’s conceived idea of the Greatroom as a central gathering place for guests. This idea is figuratively translated through a series of curved rhythmic lines on the ceiling, light fixtures, carpeting, and contemporary furniture to create a feeling of lavish comfort while unifying the interiors. Notably, jewel-toned colors incorporate the Marriott brand identity, tastefully explored through finishes and textures found throughout the lobby environment.
This particular Greatroom imparts a sense of wonder and enchantment, immediately captivating your attention with a 68-meter long, 1,500-kilogram crystal ceiling light installation, titled Draco. Draco is one of the largest sculptural crystal ribbons of its kind and the largest in Canada. Custom handcrafted and designed with 1,235 crystal rods manufactured in the Crystal Valley of Bohemia, a historic town with over 470 years of glassmaking traditions, near Prague, Czech Republic. Inspired by a dragon’s tail and named after the legendary constellation, “The Dragon”, Draco is reinforced with a polished-chrome spine, allowing it to illuminate and dance across the central ceiling space.
Complementing Draco’s expansive reach, is an undulating ceiling wave, a custom wall feature, connecting the superior Greatroom height with that of the drastically lower cocktail cubbies and elevator corridors. Unifying the interiors is an impressive illuminated staircase, rounded banquette seating layouts, halo-like lighting fixtures in the Grand Ballroom and elegant custom-carpet design in the pre-function area.
Reinventing the Marriott brand was an opportunity to showcase the brand’s true identity – contemporary, classic, dynamic and brilliantly inspired by the community. This was done by creating a visual story of soft and moving forms, neutral hues, bold lines and exquisite textures and finishes. While the hotel is designed to offer an exceptional experience for every guest and resident, the real gem of this project is the sense of harmony and graciousness that begins in the heart of the brand’s core values, radiating from the custom crystal-glass ceiling installation, majestically flowing upwards onto the staircase, and into all levels of the hotel. Surrounded by an enlightened community, the Toronto Marriott Markham is an opportunity to feel and live hospitality at its finest through the excellence of design.
