Beautiful use of lines and colour at the Hoody Active & Happiness Hotel, with Mystone Ceppo di Gré stoneware

The hospitality industry has gradually been transformed and is now offering opportunities for experimentation to interior designers and architects commissioned to conceive, renovate and furnish hospitality venues with informal, contemporary concepts.

We are on the Trent side of Lake Garda, at the Hoody Active & Happiness hotel, a new project designed by Giulia Bortolotti of the GBAI architecture firm, intended for lovers of sport and adventure.
A hotel with a fresh, modern personality, thanks to the original use of bright colours (yellow and blue in particular) and the unusual choice of furniture. Every design detail has obviously been carefully studied to dovetail with the basic concept.

For the coverings, since the building was intended for use by large numbers of sports enthusiasts, a tough, easily washable surface was required. The architect therefore selected a flooring in Mystone Ceppo di Gré stone effect porcelain stoneware, with the High Performance technology, a material which delivers outstanding technical performances and complies with the toughest international standards.

Architect and interior designer Giulia Bortolotti explained to us why she chose the Mystone Ceppo di Gré porcelain stoneware collection for the Hoody Active & Happiness Hotel: “The main aim was to be creative with traditional features, contrasting them with a design approach based on dynamism, colour and outdoor activities. What’s more, Ceppo di Gré is a stone often used as a cladding on the outsides of buildings, so its use indoors was intended to create a link between outdoors and indoors. The outdoor terraces are in wood and the interiors in Ceppo di Gré.”

The installation direction and joint colour are two design features that helped to generate a considerable aesthetic impact:

“I use lines (including the joints between tiles) in various ways within my design. Sport (and games) often create trajectories, which in this case are represented by yellow lines on the blue walls (like a bouncing ball on a tennis, squash or padel court). The joints thus become part of the “game” and are coloured to make them recognisable (just as the lines on sports fields or the lanes of athletic tracks are always visible, for obvious reasons). The staggered diagonal layout creates dynamism and continues the initial concept.”

The stoneware flooring is in 75x150 cm size tiles, installed diagonally to emphasis the dynamism of the interiors:

“I liked the idea of using a large size, to avoid over-emphasising the “coloured joints” concept and to create attractive criss-cross effects with the slanted, staggered layouts.”

The Hoody is a comfortable, informal modern hotel with large outdoor spaces: the large, light-filled communal areas give onto a panoramic terrace with a view of the grounds and Arco Castle. The large, communicating rooms in the interior can be used in a variety of ways thanks to furnishings that encourage sharing and relaxation. The meeting room table can also be used for table-tennis and the reference to exercise and health is ever-present, underlined by the colour scheme and interior design style.


GBAI, Giulia Bortolotti - Architect & Interior Designer
Ph Christian Parolari