Investigating A Spiritual Aesthetic within Islamic Patterns in the Interior Design of Hotel Rooms.

Abstract

Numerous modern hotels have been built in the holy cities of Saudi Arabia to accommodate the large number of pilgrims who come to connect with their spirituality and to worship near the Grand Mos que (Sacred Mosque) in Makkah and the Prophet's Mosque in Medina. Typically, hotels are designed using predetermined models, rather than designs that express the Islamic identity of the area. They also ignore the preferenc es of the pilgrims who come seeking a spiritual atmosphere. These are common due to either lack of communication or short deadlines in which to conduct the design process. Consequently, this research aims to address the designers' and pilgrims’ needs by proposing a design strategy and visual perspectives that will help enhance the spiritual aesthetic of hotels with Islamic patterns. Analysing the shape grammar of Islamic patterns to identify their ideology will aid in selecting the most appropriate pattern to use and will contextualise the spiritual aesthetic from the pilgrims’ perspective, thus determining the standard criteria necessary to evaluate the Islamic pattern design. It will also demonstrate the theoretical framework explaining the perception of human behaviour (the spiritual aesthetic) in terms of semiotic and symbolic interaction theories. Finally, developing a design strategy that enhances the spiritual aesthetic of Islamic patterns will be used with a qualitative philosophy and ethnographic strategy to collect data through structured and semi-structured interviews. The results of this research will contribute to current scholarship by broadening the literature in the field of interior design and revealing the strategies and theories of the spiritual aesthetic.