A hotel has fifteen seconds. A class A office building – perhaps twenty. That is how long it takes for a guest who has just crossed the threshold to form their first opinion about the place. The decision is made before anyone says “good morning”, before the reception desk issues a card, before the lifts start moving upwards. It is almost entirely visual. And – what often surprises designers themselves – to a large extent it concerns where the guest has been invited to sit.
A lobby is not a neutral room between the door and the lift. It is the first and last image the guest takes with them. Furniture is one of the three or four things they actually remember – along with the light, the floor and the face of the person behind the counter. Which makes it all the easier to underestimate.
The lobby works around the clock, and most projects do not assume that
In a living room, a sofa serves a family. In a lobby – several hundred people a week. With luggage, in wet coats, in a hurry or tired after a night flight. A four-star hotel in a medium-sized city in Central Europe records 200-400 check-ins a week. Each of them means at least one moment of waiting in the lobby – for a room, for a transfer, for another person.
Then there is the traffic no one counts: business meetings over coffee, quick one-to-ones instead of a conference room, waiting for a taxi at three in the morning. Furniture in a lobby works 24/7, with no recovery periods.
The consequences can be measured. A chair designed to a domestic standard (EN 12520) may fall apart in a lobby within a few months. The starting point for a facility of this class is EN 16139 at the higher L2 test level – intended for high-traffic places such as railway stations, public offices and hotels. A fabric with abrasion resistance of 30,000 Martindale cycles may look decent on a sample, but after six months in a lobby it will begin to fade in visible areas. The real minimum is 60,000-100,000 cycles, plus resistance to alcohol-based cleaning agents.
Reception and waiting area call for two different pieces of furniture
This is where most mistakes begin. Reception is a point of contact. The guest stands at the counter, they do not sit. The piece of furniture next to reception – an armchair, low sofa, bench – acts as a “temporary place”. A person spends one, two, at most five minutes there. They should be able to sit down quickly, get up easily and keep their luggage in sight. A low sofa with a deep seat will not work here – it makes standing up difficult and pulls the guest into a posture that does not match a short wait.
This is where furniture with a restrained, cubic form and a depth of up to 70 cm works well, with a low backrest that does not take space away from the lobby. The Verso collection was designed precisely for this kind of scenario.
A waiting area – transfer, lounge before the restaurant, a place for a meeting – has a different geometry of use. The guest sits there for 20, 40, sometimes 90 minutes. They work on a laptop, drink coffee, talk on the phone. They need comfort, but also a certain degree of privacy and a place for their things.
Here, higher backrests, modularity and access to power come into play. Collections such as Platinium HB work well – sofas and armchairs with high side walls that create privacy on their own – or the modular Nebula, with the option of mediaports integrated into the furniture.
A good project separates these two functions with furniture, not a wall. A low club armchair says: “you can wait here for a moment”. A higher backrest, almost like a side panel, says: “you can stay here”. The guest understands it without instructions.
Acoustics, because a lobby sounds different than it looks in a design
A lobby with a marble floor and glazing looks beautiful in a render. In reality, every whisper bounces off the walls. Guests speak more quietly, waiters more loudly, the television volume goes up, a phone rings like an alarm. Noise appears in a place that was supposed to feel calm.
Furniture is the first and most economical acoustic layer here. Upholstered sofas and armchairs absorb much more sound than hard seats. The difference in reverberation time between well-chosen soft seating and plywood chairs can reach one and a half to two seconds in a typical lobby. In practice, that is the difference between a conversation you half-hear and a conversation you can hold normally.
Some projects go one step further and build sound-absorbing panels into the furniture – high backrests that work like screens, modular islands with optional partitions, as in the Frame collection, designed for spaces that need to work acoustically. This solution is especially worth considering in coworking lobbies and boutique hotels, where guests often work while in transit.
You can read more about acoustics in public spaces in one of our earlier articles: HERE
Height, depth, armrests – these are not details
A seat height of 41-45 cm is a standard most adults can rise from without effort. Lower seats, 35-38 cm, look elegant and catch the eye in a photograph, but they exclude older users and anyone who has arrived in the lobby after a long journey. In a hotel where a guest arrives after a night flight, a low club chair is simply impolite.
A seat depth of 50-70 cm suits short moments. Above 70 cm, we are dealing with furniture for longer sitting – with the back supported, with a laptop. The choice is not aesthetic, it is functional. It is determined by how long the guest is meant to spend in the furniture.
Armrests are most often omitted in boutique lobbies, where aesthetics wins over function. And yet they are the support point when standing up – for a senior, for a pregnant woman, for someone with a laptop on their knees. In contract furniture, they are not decoration.
Upholstery you cannot see in a render
In a lobby with a bistro or bar, furniture is exposed to coffee, wine, tomato sauce, chocolate from a child’s hands and everything else guests bring in with them. Upholstery that cannot withstand this will fade and crack visibly within the first year. And once the surface cracks, it stops being hygienic, because it starts holding on to exactly what it was meant to repel.
That is why the standard in this category is coated fabrics or polyurethane technical leathers with abrasion resistance of 60,000-100,000 Martindale cycles – washable and resistant to alcohol-based cleaning agents. Pure eco-leather is avoided in places with many children – a key, chisel or backpack patch can cut it in a second.
Fire certificates: in hotels and airports, EN 1021-1 and EN 1021-2 are standard, and in many chains also the British BS 5852. Without them, the furniture simply will not enter the reception area.
What this means for the project
Lobby, reception and waiting area are three separate micro-spaces, connected by a shared aesthetic. Furniture separates them functionally and brings them together visually. Three rules are especially costly to ignore:
Choose two, sometimes three types of furniture, not one. Reception and lounge area are different functions – one piece of furniture will not serve both.
Check technical parameters (EN 16139 L2, 60,000-100,000 Martindale cycles, fire certification) before you choose the fabric sample. You can always choose a sample. The standard will hold the project together for the next ten years.
Focus on modularity. A hotel changes its concept once every three years, an office once every five. Contract furniture must survive that, preferably without replacement.
And when the specification is ready and the certificates are on the desk, what always happens happens again: the guest crosses the threshold, looks around, hands over their suitcase. You point to an armchair.
Have a seat.
FAQ
What furniture works well in a hotel lobby?
Contract furniture that complies with EN 16139, ideally at the higher L2 test level, which is intended for high-traffic areas. Upholstery should have abrasion resistance of at least 60,000 Martindale cycles, fire certificates EN 1021-1 and EN 1021-2, and in premium chains also BS 5852. It is worth separating two types of furniture: low, cubic pieces for short waiting near reception, such as Verso, and higher pieces with privacy elements for longer sitting with a laptop, such as Platinium HB or Nebula.
How is contract furniture different from domestic furniture?
In structure and parameters. Domestic furniture serves a few people a day. Furniture in a lobby serves several hundred people a week, every day and for years. It has a stronger frame, more durable foams, upholstery with several times higher abrasion resistance and passes tougher strength tests.
What should the seat height be for waiting area furniture?
41-45 cm. From this height, most adults can stand up without effort, including older people, guests travelling with children and guests after a long flight. Lower seats, 35-38 cm, look elegant, but exclude some users and do not suit a lobby where the guest stops only for a moment.
What fabrics should be chosen for lobby furniture?
Coated fabrics or polyurethane technical leathers with abrasion resistance of 60,000-100,000 Martindale cycles – washable, resistant to alcohol-based cleaning agents, with EN 1021-1 and EN 1021-2 fire certification. In premium facilities, the British BS 5852 is often required as well.
Does furniture in a lobby really influence the guest’s first impression?
Yes. A guest assesses a place within the first 15-20 seconds, almost entirely visually. Furniture is one of the three or four elements they truly notice – next to light, flooring and reception. A well-chosen piece builds the first thought: “this is a good place”. A poorly chosen one damages that impression, regardless of the rest of the project.
Which KLEIBER collections work well in lobbies and receptions?
For reception areas and short waiting – Verso, with its low, cubic form and compact depth of 70 cm. For longer sitting and work in the lobby – Platinium HB, with high backrests and natural privacy, and Nebula, with modularity and optional built-in mediaports. For spaces with demanding acoustics – Frame, with modular islands and optional screens.
What makes good waiting area furniture in an aparthotel?
It combines club-like luxury with domestic functionality. A seat height of 41-45 cm, a depth above 70 cm for longer sitting, upholstery with high resistance to abrasion and stains, and optional access to power. Modularity is especially important in an aparthotel, because the character of the interior changes faster than in a classic hotel.
