sneak peek: uwishunu

yesterday i heard from caroline at uwishunu, a new group created by the tourism board in philadelphia. focusing on the "unconventional assets in philadelphia" that are attracting a "new" kind of visitor to the city, uwishunu decided to redesign a single room (room 414) within the westin hotel. the theme of the room was "hip philadelphia" and the goal was to showcase local philadelphia artists and designers (rj thornburg and eileen tognini were the main designers for the project). normally i'm a little skeptical of anything coming from a tourism board but i'll have to say- the room is pretty cool. there's a whole lot of woodgrain and some really beautiful metallic detailing in the tile and hardware. what i love most about this project is that the city really gave local designers free reign to do what they wanted with the room. it's not often that you see local talent supported and showcased in that way so it was fun to see how they chose to express "philadelphia style". you can see full sized (and additional) photos of the hotel room right here or browse below for a quick peek. thanks to caroline for sending this along and thank you to jason smith for sharing his photography with d*s [all photos are by jason smith for uwishunu].