QT Gold Coast

QT Gold Coast changes its look constantly, for seasons, for events and for the photographs guests take. We designed its interior plantscape with exactly that in mind.

The client

QT Gold Coast is a destination rather than a single room. Multiple restaurants including a signature Japanese venue, a day spa, a café and a pool terrace, all restyled through the year. The brief asked for one plantscape that could unify those experiences and still be moved, so a space can be transformed without trading off plant health or the way guests move through it.

The brief

The designer pots had to be lightweight and durable. The planting had to read bold, tropical and five-star, and be practical in a building that works around the clock.

Wayfinding

The design treats plants and designer pots as mood-setting and wayfinding devices as much as decoration. Sculptural pots act as visual anchors that guide guests from the lobby to the lifts, the spa and the pool terrace.

The palette is deliberately built from proven indoor performers: fiddle leaf fig, monstera, bird of paradise, peace lily, bamboo palm and green congo philodendron. They give lush silhouettes and layered texture that soften high volumes, frame the views to the pool and make places worth photographing, without blocking circulation.

The pots are colour-coded, and that carries a soft wayfinding system through the building: calm greens near Spa Q, bolder tones at the restaurant portals, fresh light hues at the lobby windows to bridge the interior and the terrace.

Yamagen

At Yamagen the approach changes. Japanese garden cues signpost the restaurant before a guest crosses the threshold: Ligularia reniformis, the tractor-seat plant, for glossy water-lily foliage; vibrant azaleas to echo the neon signage; clipped buxus and juniper for structure.

The combination is unusual in a hotel—not because the species are rare, they are not, but because they are used with discipline, as a narrative rather than a display.

The pots

The designer pots tie the hotel together across levels and venues. A cast-concrete character suits the building’s 1980s architecture. Textured finishes reinforce the indoor-outdoor dialogue at the glazed ground floor. Ribbed forms add height and rhythm at the entries.

All were new, and chosen for durability, mobility and visual coherence. They are light enough that a space can be restyled quickly during an event without risk to anyone, or to the plants.

Every living installation is top-dressed with pine bark mulch. It suits the neutral palette of the pots, and horticulturally it buffers root temperatures, limits evaporation and adds organic matter over time, which matters most near sun-warmed glazing and in air-conditioned corridors.

Installing around a working hotel

Two constraints shaped the installation.

• Loading dock logistics. Back of house had to stay clear, so we scheduled rolling drops and pre-set the planter and plant pairings before arrival, to cut the time spent at the dock.
• Unfamiliar pot internals. The pots arrived shortly before installation, so secure double-potting and reservoirs had to be solved on site. Installers trialled setups on a pop-up bench until they had a safe, repeatable method, then rolled it through the public spaces.

Maintenance

The site is serviced fortnightly, with targeted refreshes in between. Every plant has a recorded water plan based on its location and the volume of its pot.

Sub-irrigation with nothing to fail

Each plant is double-potted, with a stone reservoir between the grow pot and the sealed outer pot. It stops roots sitting in water, creates a passive buffer that extends watering cycles beyond fourteen days, and stops the two vessels sucking together, which makes change-outs faster and less stressful for the plant. There are no moving parts, which matters in a building that never closes. Where we can, the stones are reused from earlier projects, and they double as a mechanical filter that keeps the water fresh.

Pests and pruning

Technicians inspect on every visit. We reach for natural pesticides, insecticides and fungicides first. In the rare severe case a plant is treated off site and returned once stable, which protects the guest areas and the rest of the stock. Early intervention is what keeps replacement rates low.

Pruning is deliberate and concealed: dead or diseased material removed promptly, selective height and width control to protect sightlines and signage, and thinning of dense crowns for airflow and even light. Plants are rotated seasonally so they grow evenly, and foliage is cleaned and polished on every visit.

What we changed

Light, temperature and humidity were assessed zone by zone before the plants were chosen, then verified after installation. The lift lobbies turned out to carry stronger afternoon sun than expected, so the peace lilies there were swapped for green congo philodendrons, which prefer the brighter conditions. The design intent held, and the planting was better for the correction.

Recognition

QT Gold Coast won the Medium category at the 2025 Interior Plantscape Association awards.