The Luxury Hotel Redefined – Jackalope Hotel by Carr Design

Redefining the luxury hotel experience through an engagement of the senses, triggered by transformative touchpoints, Carr Design’s Jackalope Hotel in Red Hill offers a true escape.

Initially conceived on the ideals of creating a truly inimitable hospitality experience, Jackalope Hotel is designed as a true destination hotel in Victoria’s Red Hill (a popular short drive from Melbourne’s CBD). We speak with Dan Cox, Director of Interiors at Carr Design, about the design process, initial ideation and the resulting strength of the narrative that unfolded. Dan says, “the brief was to create an experience that was mood altering, a transformative escape from the everyday.” He explains that in its own unique way, “it had to be avant-garde, but primarily it had to capture the imagination and be memorable.” An impassioned collaboration between Carr, owner Louis Li, and Studio Ongarato, Dan adds that the client “had a thirst to create something new, which enabled a design to be developed that had visual strength and cohesion.”

Immersed in its own storytelling elements, the hotel overlooks the adjacent landscape and rolling vineyards, where a mix of old and new agricultural techniques intertwine. With forty-six individual rooms, Jackalope Hotel is clad in a combination of dark charred timber and dark aluminium and references the vernacular of the barn in recognition of the agricultural context it sits amongst. Describing Carr Design’s approach, Dan says “we aimed to go well beyond the archetypal Australian winery vernacular,” and instead focused on “typically earthy, timber lined spaces that have a direct correlation with local materiality.”

Through close collaboration with Studio Ongarato in defining the experiential narrative, the art curation and branding became a cohesive part of the design process. Dan says, “it was a unique process as they were developing the Jackalope brand and the specific site thematic while we were crafting the architecture and interiors.” He continues, “this rare opportunity meant the brand and the space were developed in tandem, each influencing the other which has led to a distinctive outcome with strong symbolism and meaning.” The resulting focus on alchemy and its connection to, as Dan says, “a narrative specific to the vineyard context,” provided the foundations for both a process, the approach to materiality and its unfolding aesthetic within the internal spaces. Dan adds, “it enabled a multi-faceted story that is told via the various spaces throughout the hotel.”

A truly design-driven experience – an immersion amongst a mix of the traditional and the contemporary – Jackalope Hotel is a boutique hotel with its own defining difference. Dan says, “we concentrated on strict editing so there was one strong idea per space. The art and installations create the drama while the rest of the spaces are intentionally minimal and recessive – it is almost like almost like a ‘black box’ gallery where the lit installations are like the stars that puncture the country night sky.” As visitors move through the hotel spaces, the ‘states of alchemy’ unfold and a series of passive and active spaces are created. Dan explains, “the rooms are more subtle, offering a sense of calm and respite – the planning is geared toward maximising the view to the surrounding landscape.”

Aware the changing mode of the hospitality visitor and the influential effects of social media, the offering of experiences over objects is also integral to the operation of the hotel. And in acceptance, Dan says, “The hotel is designed as a visually arresting backdrop.” With such a strong design-heavy team, Carr’s role, as Dan says, “was to balance the inputs from a variety of collaborators to create a project that in its entirety is cohesive and elegant. The unifier was the pared-back interior architecture that enables the art, installations and embellishments to become highly visible.” Successfully becoming the conduit of experience, distilling the ingredients and confidently producing such a diversified offering, Jackalope Hotel sees Carr Design truly redefine the luxury hotel experience.