A bespoke ceiling for a hotel with local roots

Bringing acoustic comfort and visual identity to a reimagined lobby space.

Hôtel Mercure Hyères Centre Lobby Design | Case Studies

Rockfon Color-all in White, Concrete and Charcoal against the lobby's vibrant blue walls.

A hotel that felt too generic

Major hotel chains face the same challenge everywhere: how do you make a guest feel like they've arrived somewhere specific, rather than just another branch of the same brand?

At Hôtel Mercure Hyères Centre, on the French Mediterranean coast, the lobby was the problem. Guest felt it was impersonal, a bit outdated, and disconnected from the town around it. For a destination with as much character as Hyères, something had to be done.

The hotel brought in interior designer Karolina Lubkowski to change that. Her brief was straightforward: give this lobby a personality. Make it feel local.

What she found when she looked to the town for inspiration would shape every design decision that followed.

No real identify (and no acoustic plan).

Hyères is home to Villa Noailles, one of the first modernist villas in France, a landmark of graphic contrasts, clean geometry and bold black and white interiors.

For Lubkowski, it was the obvious starting point.

But translating that inspiration into a hotel lobby came with a practical problem. The space had reverberant hard floors and large windows across most of its surface area. By definition, a hotel lobby is a noisy space, guests arriving and departing, conversations at the front desk, groups gathering.

Without acoustic treatment, those hard surfaces would make the space uncomfortable and difficult to hold a conversation in.
The ceiling had to do two things at once: carry the design concept and solve the noise problem.

Project info

Project name

Hôtel Mercure Hyères Centre

Location

Hyères, France

Architecture

Karolina Lubkowski, KL Studio Design

Installation

Sylvain Barthelemy

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Products used

Rockfon Color-all®

View

A busy lobby with a working bar, hard floors and large windows. The Color-all tiles keeping acoustic comfort intact.

Tiles with an ‘X-edge’ slide over the grid profiles, to hide it from view. Leading to a more seamless look.

Gradients, angles, and Class A acoustics

Lubkowski specified Rockfon Color-all acoustic ceiling tiles in four shades, White, Stone, Concrete, and Charcoal, arranged in a gradient across the space.

Darker tones above the lounge areas, defined by bright coloured walls, and lighter shades across the high circulation zones. The result is a subtle zoning of the space without physical barriers, guiding guests intuitively through the lobby.

To add energy and break from convention, she rotated the ceiling grid 45 degrees. The angled layout introduces rhythm that references the graphic character of Villa Noailles without copying it directly.

The Color-All tiles with ‘X-edge’ profile create a near-seamless surface, concealing the grid so the colour gradient and angled layout become the defining elements of the ceiling.

And underneath all of that, the tiles deliver Class A sound absorption, the highest rating available, managing the reverberation from hard floors and large windows so guests can hold a conversation comfortably, even when the lobby is busy.

The grid rotated 45 degrees to the walls, adding a dynamic rhythm to the space.

A lobby that tells a story.

"To tell a local story" is the challenge major hotel chains face today, as they move from standardising to localising their guests' experience. At Hôtel Mercure Hyères Centre, the ceiling tells that story.

The redesigned lobby shows what acoustic ceiling design can do when it's treated as a design element rather than a technical requirement. Better acoustics, a stronger sense of place, and a space that finally reflects where it actually is.

Also want to give your hotel's communal spaces a stronger local identity without compromising acoustic comfort? Get in touch, and together we'll find a ceiling solution fits best.