The team behind the design of the world’s first cruise ship focused on fitness explains the key considerations and innovations
The world’s first cruise liner dedicated to sport and fitness has been launched – and is being designed by Tomas Tillberg International and Juan Poggi Designs.
New cruise operator Blue World Voyages’ ship is designed to reflect this ethos. Its website explained that it has a deck dedicated to wellness, including the largest spa facility per passenger at sea. There is another deck dedicated to sports and fitness, including a bike fitting station, the world’s largest ocean-going functional training and strength conditioning facility and a golf school.
Another innovative feature of the ship, due to launch in 2020, is the owners’ club residences. Buyers will be able to purchase the luxury one- and two-bedroom residences aboard the refurbished 350-guest vessel.
Juan Poggi Designs’ Juan Poggi opens up to Passenger Ship Technology about some of the drivers for the design. “I decided not to think too much about cruise and dream about what our clients might like to experience in a ship with a different approach overall. Immediately my mind started to travel to beautiful textures, clean and open spaces, natural materials, daylight and candlelight, sweet and tart… It is all about the senses.”
He adds “The interiors of all vessels are totally different today as the clientele is more informed – to be ahead in the cruise game, you must seduce the guest with beautiful and inviting design. We will use a clean selection of colours. We like to use colours we borrow from the natural pigment of the fibre – for example, from cottons and linens we will use off whites and beiges and from the indigos we will borrow the blues. We will be bringing soothing ocean colours and adding some earth tones for personality.”
The project is the first time Mr Poggi has been involved in ship design. “For me everything will be a challenge because this is my first experience designing interiors for a cruise ship. I think this is an advantage, because I will dream and create… the adjustment will follow.”
Sustainability is an important theme for the ship’s design. Mr Poggi comments, “We are very aware of sustainability, a core value for Blue World Voyages. I am planning to use recycled materials for tables and specific details.”
Passenger flow and planning is also a crucial part of the design considerations. Mr Poggi
explains “Space planning and flow are critically important considerations when designing for the number of people that will share the ship. The experience is a new one, so we are being extra careful to study this and incorporate it into our designs in ways that combine maximum functionality with esthetics. This project is about feeling great… in your mind and surroundings.
Peace, place and pace are our main words for this project.”
Mr Poggi is working with Tomas Tillberg on the design. Commenting on their combined efforts, he says “We are working with an amazing team. Tomas Tillberg has been creating groundbreaking designs for the cruise industry for five decades. The infusion of a residential design firm like Poggi Design will add new perspectives to furnishings, aesthetics, lighting and space.”
He adds “The depth and scope of experience that Tomas Tillberg brings to the project and to the team is priceless. He was the original innovator in designing for the cruise industry, I am very grateful to have this opportunity to work together and bring our collaboration to a new port.”
Bolidt Innovation Center opens ‘intelligent’ materials conversation
Bolidt has unveiled its Bolidt Innovation Center just outside Rotterdam. The open-source facility has been designed to stimulate co-creative innovation and ingenuity as the company promotes a collaborative approach to new, smart materials.
Its latest developments include intelligent decking systems with sensors to gather safety data, LED-integrated materials to enhance the appearance and safety of cruise decks and sustainable sealants, plant oil resins and adhesives for its production process.
“Innovation and clever chemistry have run through the company’s DNA throughout its 55-year history,” says company chief executive Rientz Willem Bol.
Smart materials
The Bolidt Innovation Center is an open house for cruise ship designers, builders, materials and science experts.
The centre’s ultra-modern structure houses a multi-functional facility with a brain-storming space and high-tech laboratories devoted to developing new polymer-based materials for special purposes such as low-and high-temperature and high-impact applications.
A roof terrace shows off the company’s latest flooring and decking systems and is adorned with sustainable outdoor applications fabricated elsewhere on the Bolidt Campus. Meanwhile, a new high-tech logistics warehouse controls global deliveries.
Bolidt maritime division director Jacco van Overbeek says “The Bolidt Innovation Center is clearly designed to deliver the ‘wow’ factor to customers old and new, but it is also a very serious investment in making sure the company stays ahead in this highly competitive field. With materials technology development accelerating fast, Bolidt is also providing the facilities for its own team of highly specialised chemists and materials scientists to develop the products of tomorrow.”
Best known as a supplier of creative decking systems to the cruise industry, Bolidt’s new investment also comes at a time when more cruise ships are now on order and more capital is being invested in the sector than ever before.
According to Mr van Overbeek, Bolidt products have been installed on board some 350 new cruise vessels, together with a similar number of retrofits.
Customers include several cruise brands owned by the world’s two largest cruise groups, Carnival and Royal Caribbean, brands within the Genting Group, Hurtigruten, Mystic Cruises and Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection.
Recent advances include developing temperature-tolerant products suitable for exploration cruise vessels and a range of intelligent products designed not only with appearance, durability and cost in mind, but also key safety and efficiency components for today’s increasingly smart vessels. The latest innovations include a decking system that measures footfall over key areas of the ship, which is important for passenger management and safety.
Bespoke flooring with in-built LED lighting, designed both for style and practical purposes, is a relatively new product and can already be seen on some of the newest cruise deliveries. Glow-in-the-dark materials are also available for ships’ interior and exterior spaces.
On board the 4,000-passenger Meyer Werft-built sister ships Norwegian Bliss and Norwegian Joy, products installed include a specially developed synthetic material used for the ships’ go-karting tracks. Bolideck Racetrack, based on established road-surfacing technology, is non-slip, resistant, durable and safe. Its surface adhesion composition varies between straights and corners to cater for the karts.
Part of the resin-based decking systems installed on board Norwegian Bliss includes 5,575 m2 of Bolideck Future Teak, a popular sustainable product widely used to replace maintenance-heavy teak decks on cruise vessels and yachts in retrofit projects. The Norwegian Cruise Line contract also includes flooring systems for the soon-to-be-delivered Norwegian Encore and five retrofit projects, bringing the total contract installation area to 46,000 m2.
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