There are key moments in every hotel project where the decisions that matter most are made, and they are not necessarily the moment most people think.
It is not when the curtain fabric is chosen or the bathroom tiles are specified. It is not when the lobby furniture arrives or the signage goes up. It is at RIBA Stage 2 (concept design) when the fundamental approach to construction, fixing, material selection, and services integration is established. These decisions are often made quickly, sometimes by default, and rarely with any consideration of what they will cost the building’s owner in seven, ten, or fifteen years’ time.
And yet they are the decisions that determine almost everything about the cost, speed, and waste generated by every future refurbishment the building will ever undergo.
The invisible lock-in
When a designer specifies adhesive rather than mechanical fixings, that decision is mostly invisible on the opening day. But seven years later, when the hotel refreshes, that adhesive means the furniture cannot be disassembled and it must be demolished, replaced or shoe-horned into a new scheme. The joinery cannot be adapted or separated for recycling, and in most cases, it goes to landfill or incineration.
The same applies to services integration. A headboard with sockets, switches, and reading lights permanently fixed into a bespoke timber surround looks elegant on day one. But when electrical regulations change (and they always do) or when the brand requires an upgrade, the moment that headboard is touched, the entire unit may need replacing. If the distribution board is built into the wardrobe, a regulatory update can trigger a full rewire of every room. On a 300-key hotel, poorly considered decisions around the integration of lighting, sockets, switches, and distribution boards can easily translate into £400,000 to £600,000 of avoidable cost at the first major refurbishment.
These are not sustainability arguments. They are financial realities that flow directly from design decisions made at Stage 2.
What the numbers look like
We designed a hotel in London almost a decade ago with these principles embedded from concept stage. Every fixing method, every material junction, every service connection was considered not just for how it would perform on the opening day, but for how it would behave when the hotel needed to be repaired and refreshed.
Seven years later, the cost of refurbishment created a compelling argument for support a concept design built of the principles of design for disassembly. Each bedroom furniture unit, combining wardrobe, chest of drawers, and desk, had cost £1,850 when originally manufactured and installed in 2015. At the point of refurbishment, the cost to remove, fully refurbish off-site, and reinstall was £875 per unit. That is a saving of £975 per room before considering inflation. Across 150 rooms, this single element represented over £146,000 in reduced capital expenditure — a 53% cost reduction compared to complete replacement.
Overall, the refurbishment costs were approximately 40% of what a conventional complete replacement would have required and represented a 75% reduction in embodied carbon; not through offsetting or credits, but through the direct consequence of keeping materials in use
The savings that start before refurbishment
The financial benefit did not begin at the seven-year refresh. It started on day one and accumulated throughout the operating period.
Because the rooms had been designed for easy repair e.g. components that could be removed, fixed, and reinstalled without specialist tools or lengthy downtime, there was an 80% reduction in rooms being taken offline for maintenance. Over seven years, that equates to approximately 700 additional sellable nights. For a hotel in London, where every unsold night represents significant lost revenue, those numbers are substantial.
What Stage 2 decisions actually matter
For developers and their project teams, the practical question is: what specifically should we be deciding differently at concept design stage?
Fixing hierarchy. Establish a clear hierarchy: bolts first, screws second, adhesives last. Bolted connections allow materials to come apart and go back together repeatedly without degradation. Screws are appropriate where bolting is impractical but have limited cycle life. Adhesives should be used sparingly and strategically and never as a default. If an element cannot be removed intact, it has been designed for disposal rather than refurbishment.
Services independence. Design electrical and mechanical services independently of decorative elements. Sockets, switches, and reading lights should be accessible without demolishing the headboard. Distribution boards should not be fixed into wardrobes. Access panels should be provided for concealed plumbing. These decisions cost nothing extra at Stage 2 but save enormous sums at first refurbishment.
Material separation. Keep material types distinct and separable. A solid wood panel with a metal edge that screws on can be disassembled and each material recycled or reused. A composite panel with laminate bonded to MDF with metal edging glued in place goes to landfill as mixed waste. The design intent is the same (a finished panel with a metal trim) but the end-of-life outcomes are completely different.
Standardised fixings. Specify fasteners that can be undone with standard tools. Avoid proprietary systems that require specialist equipment. The maintenance team or future contractor taking the room apart in seven years probably will not have access to the original manufacturer’s custom toolkit. If disassembly is difficult or uncertain, it simply will not happen.
Documentation. Create material passports for every significant furniture piece and architectural element: materials used, fixing methods, assembly sequence, disassembly instructions, recycling or take-back options. This information must travel with the building. Without it, the D4D features you have designed in will not be utilised by future teams who do not know they exist.
The cost objection
The most common response I hear is that this approach costs more upfront. Sometimes it does; mechanical fixings can cost more than adhesives, and modular systems may require more complex engineering. But the upfront premium is typically 0-10%, and the lifecycle savings are 40-60%. The payback happens at the first refurbishment and compounds with every subsequent cycle.
Over a thirty-year building life, with refurbishments every seven to ten years, you are looking at millions in reduced capital expenditure. These are not theoretical savings. They are real reductions that flow directly to the bottom line.
It is also worth noting that in mid-market and luxury hotels, Design for Disassembly principles frequently add no cost at all. The approach is not about reinventing how things are built. It is about being conscious of how we design and why, rather than blindly following conventional methods that could be done better. More often than not, clients pay the same but get dramatically more — both in immediate quality and long-term value.
The question for developers
Every hotel will be refurbished. The only questions are when and at what cost. The developers who understand this see the opening day not as the finish line but as the starting point for a long-term investment. As a result, are the ones who commission design that protects their capital over decades rather than consuming it in cycles.
The decisions that determine your 2035 refurbishment costs are being made now, at Stage 2, in concept design meetings where the focus is usually on aesthetics and brand positioning rather than lifecycle performance. If no one in the room is asking how things come apart, how services can be accessed, and how materials can be separated, then no one is protecting the owner’s long-term investment.
