Fully equipped with life-size room designs, high ceilings, individual design rooms, and miniature-scale models, the Marriott Innovation Lab is an impressive creative space within Marriott. Marriott International Headquarters, located in Bethesda, Maryland, boasts a new underground innovation lab that allows room ideas, architecture designs, and furniture inventions to be tested and scaled. Its main use is as a maker space to test these designs.
Upon entering, you first notice the dark ambiance and clever quotes about invention lining the walls. Red spinning chairs are an instant attention-grabber before you even enter the lab. The introductory posters say that Marriott has a “New attitude, new look, and new campaign.” Sofas and chairs gather around a coffee table, like a waiting room for guests. Over 2000 people have visited the Innovation Lab since its launch. It is evident that Marriott is a corporation full of creativity and risk-taking, a motto that the Montgomery County Innovation Department mirrors.
The full-scale rooms from the different divisions of Marriott, such as Courtyard and Renaissance, offer a new modern feel that will be present in hotels within a few months. The tour guide talks of Marriott’s constantly changing design, and how every few years they undergo complete makeovers. For example, the Courtyard chain just had its lobbies redecorated, and the Residence Inn has new features such as a full-size refrigerator and two-burner stove to meet the needs of extended travelers. Marriott designs the rooms with the traveler in mind, launching many new features to accommodate the modernization of society. Marriott clearly takes advantage of the beauty of innovation.
The lab itself is well-lit with high ceilings, ceiling fans, and compartmentalized rooms that show more full-scale models of rooms and bathrooms. The bathrooms were redesigned to make use of the small space given, and the showers have new tile and shower head designs that are both pleasing to the eye and convenient. The upper level of the lab, which overlooks the first level on a balcony, has a lounge area with sofas as well as miniature models of future hotels. This allows companies and tours to visualize the full hotel, including the lobbies. The open space and environment allows room for ideas to flow, with an inspiring look that triggers invention and innovation. The Innovation Program thanks Jennifer Lund of Marriott for the tour and is so proud to have a company like Marriott call Montgomery County home.