SEDA VERTIS NORTH, A CANVAS FOR PHILIPPINE DESIGN
“Seda is now more at home with its success and this is reflected in our scale,” explains group general manager Brett Hickey. Other Seda hotels throughout the country — including the first property in BGC — were built to complement a growing business district. Seda Vertis North was designed not just to cater to the emerging Vertis North business district but to also meet the demands of other communities in the largest city of Metro Manila, other northern cities including those in neighboring Bulacan province.
Its lobby hues to the original Seda design vision of being a timeless, contemporary hotel with a distinct Filipino sensibility. But is easily more than double the size of most Seda lobbies, “heightening one’s sense of arrival,” according to Edwin Yabut, Ayala Land AVP and head of the Seda Vertis North project design team.
There are iconic pieces by global Pinoy furniture designers Kenneth Cobonpue and Vito Selma, and sculptor Ann Pamintuan.
“Seda has always been a canvas for Filipino design talent,” according to Yabut. At the Vertis North property, Filipino artistry is also celebrated through art pieces by photographer Jaime Zobel de Ayala and other visual artists and through furniture and furnishings by Philippine manufacturers.
A contemporary hotel with a distinct Filipino sensibility.
The hospitality brand’s evolution into the premium category is best exemplified nevertheless by Seda Vertis North’s all-day dining facility, Misto. Designed to seat as many as 250, the restaurant also has a show kitchen with various stations and an extensive buffet including delectable pastries that changes with the seasons and diners’ tastes.
The Seda Vertis North guest may also choose to dine at a soon-to-open top-end Chinese restaurant or to take a meal of appetizers and other light dishes with drinks at the hip Straight Up Roofdeck bar, which offers al fresco seating and stunning views of the surrounding cityscape.
But the heart of Seda Vertis North, and every Seda hotel for that matter, is its spacious guest room which is both welcoming as well as multi-functional. The hotel’s 32-sqm. deluxe room as well as its club rooms and suites were conceptualized to “have a residential feel,” explains Yabut, beginning with warm colors to add punch to an otherwise neutral palette.
But more than the “hardware” available to Seda Vertis North’s guests, the hotel’s “software” or service component is what will drive guests to return, says Hickey. “Since its founding in 2012, Seda has been drawing from innate Filipino hospitality and combining it with high levels of training to meet the needs of global travelers.” He has set for himself the task of sharpening his colleagues’ eye for details so they are fully aware of the expectations of the international guest seeking premier accommodations.