Every so often, a project comes along that makes you fall in love with a space all over again. The Foundation Hotel in Detroit is one of those. A commercial space that doesn’t look like it’s trying to survive anything. You know the vibe. Hospitality spaces so obsessed with being indestructible they forget to be pretty. This is the opposite of that, and we’ve been staring at these photos from our most recent shoot all week.
The studio behind the design is Parini Design, a Detroit-based, female-owned interior design firm founded in 2018 by Amy Pariser and Christine Babini. They’ve built a name on boutique hospitality and residential work, with a philosophy rooted in honest materiality, no single signature aesthetic, and a real commitment to supporting local. Parini took this 1929 former fire department headquarters, if you can believe it, and traded the old raw, industrial look for something layered, warm, and luxe.
Parini kept the good bones and layered the space in chenilles, patterned jacquards, and saturated solids. They created the kind of space where a guest of The Apparatus Room can sink into the banquette seating, order a cocktail, and have no concern over a cocktail cheers gone rogue.
Here’s the plot twist, nearly every one of those beautiful seats is upholstered in Crypton contract fabric.
The lobby seating in this hundred-key hotel gets worked hard. Luggage dragged across it, guests parked on it for hours, the whole daily parade. Bar seating? Spills aren’t an accident; they’re the job description.
A regular upholstery fabric taps out fast. This is where the double rub count comes in, the abrasion test that tells you how much friction a fabric survives before it wears. Residential upholstery fabrics have, on average, 15,000 – 30,000 double rubs. The average contract fabric starts at 30,000. The heavy hitters like Crypton’s high-performance contract fabric can push past 100,000 double rubs. That’s the difference between seating that looks tired after a couple years and seating that looks good as new on its thousandth guest.
Durability is only half the story, and cleanability is the half nobody photographs. Thirty-plus years ago, Crypton pioneered the first patented integrated moisture barrier for upholstery, meaning the wine, the espresso, and the vinaigrette that lands on the seat doesn’t soak down into the cushion and set up permanent residence.
That same moisture barrier fabric is the only upholstery evaluated by the EPA to be disinfected when paired with our EPA-registered Crypton Disinfectant & Deodorizer spray, a hospital-grade disinfectant. The two work as a system to kill bacteria and viruses, not just wipe them around.
It stays on the surface where routine maintenance and cleaning handle the situation. Our performance fabrics shrug off stains, spills, and odors with ease. The furniture looks fresh, and your clients aren’t reupholstering every couple of years.
A little Detroit hometown pride (Crypton is headquartered in Bloomfield Hills, MI), many of our contract fabrics are made in the USA at Crypton Mills, tucked into the foothills of North Carolina. Made to perform beautifully for years, which, when you think about it, is its own kind of sustainability.
Speaking of sustainability, this is where we get a little nerdy because the technology matters. Crypton is PFAS-free (no “forever chemicals”), fluorine-free, and formaldehyde-free, plus GREENGUARD Gold certified for low chemical emissions. We value and support healthier indoor air in the spaces where people actually gather and stay.
So next time you’re specifying for a high-traffic commercial space and someone tells you performance means compromise, send them a photo of The Apparatus Room.
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Crypton Performance Fabrics are thoughtfully designed to be spill-proof and odor resistant, protecting your investment in upholstered dining chairs and bar stools for restaurants. Crypton is the number one choice of commercial designers for interior performance upholstery fabric.
15 years ago, we created the first EPA-approved disinfectable fabric. We help leading healthcare and hospitality designers create beautiful interior spaces that combine comfort, design and durability for top brands, including Starbucks, Four Seasons, and Mayo Clinic.
Our broad network of leading contract brand partners is easily searchable and includes top fabric and contract furniture brands that offer a variety of our fabrics for any project you may be working on.
The first ever EPA-approved disinfectable fabric has brought unparalleled style and performance to commercial design projects for more than 15 years. Learn more about how our performance fabric is changing commercial interiors for good.
