Opening in early 2025, The Standard, Brussels marks the hotel brand’s third outpost in Europe. Set in the city’s Northern Quarter, The Standard, Brussels brings the brand’s design, culture and activation-driven philosophy to Belgium.

With 180 guestrooms (plus 20 residences), the modern, new-build project features many stages for The Standard’s renowned day- and nightlife. A ground-floor greenhouse welcomes guests and locals into the lobby lounge, restaurant, and terrace. Upstairs, The Rooftop features its own restaurant, bar and garden—set to become a neighbourhood destination. Throughout the building, additional public and private event spaces are platforms for happenings.

The Standard, Brussels will welcome a new set of creative, dynamic guests into the brand ethos. In Brussels, The Standard’s signature mix of playful, sophisticated, unexpected hospitality finds roots and resonances in local culture. The simple premise behind The Standard is that it is anything but. Founded in 1999, the goals of every Standard are to up the aesthetic stakes and defy convention while attending to every detail, embracing our local communities, providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for our teams and, of course, delivering a smashing good time for our guests.

We are defined by our richness of personality, diversity of background and lifestyle and are now looking for a Design Manager who will embody our ‘Anything but Standard’ ethos as we commence our pre-opening period.

Your role

As our Design Manager, you will work in partnership with our General Manager, Senior Executive team, and Corporate Design team in New York to deliver a diverse range of Interior Design and Creative initiatives for our new property in Brussels.

As part of our senior pre-opening team, you will oversee a number of important FF&E projects on our critical path during pre-opening period, to ensure that Design concepts and interior schemes remain to plan, timelines, and budget. The Standard, Brussels is our third European property and you will have full responsibility for overseeing the final staging of all of our guest rooms, suites, and public areas, ensuring all finishing touches and Design elements are in place for opening and are in line with our band design ethos and most important resonate with the local Brussels market and our brand DNA.

On a day-to-day basis, you will support the wider Hotel, Restaurants and Bars with approved scopes of work, requests for proposals, project schedules related to renovation and FF&E projects and be the point of contact for all hotel design projects. You’ll work closely with our senior Engineering teams to assist departments in overseeing and ensuring the accurate production of bid/construction sets and that the documents are completed in a timely manner, including needed permits, and that design and construction documents meet all requirements. Once project plans are approved you will coordinate orders and delivery with vendors and suppliers to ensure the seamless delivery of the project so there is minimal impact to the Hotel operation.

An important part of your role is the continual upkeep of the overall Design ethos of all guest spaces with regard to furniture layouts and room set-ups to ensure this remains consistent and that all colleagues are familiar with the specific design concepts and staging related to their areas so that daily checks are conducted by the team to review the set-up of all restaurants, bars and public areas to ensure that they are set to standard and that any special seasonal themes or activations are in place.

You’ll take ownership of all Seasonal activations, such as Christmas, New Year or Easter through the design and proposal of  various schemes to the GM so that these are agreed in advance and are planned accordingly within realistic timeframes via an annual calendar. In conjunction with the Events Manager, undertake, design and stage all aspects of any key special events requirements on the behalf of clients and guests in order to apply bespoke ‘Finishing touches’ to guest events.

This is not a ‘Standard’ Design Manager position so you will need to have miles and miles of personality and stamina, be highly social, upbeat, and friendly; confident and can handle pressure well; thrive in a high-volume, high-energy environment and able to work equally well both independently and as part of a team.

Do you have what it takes to be our Design Manager at The Standard, Brussels?

A minimum of 3+ years’ experience related experience in interior design, architecture, construction or project management or an equivalent combination of education and experience. Must include experience managing renovations and/or construction projects gained ideally in Brussels or the Benelux region

In addition to this, the ideal candidate will also…

• Have a good understanding of the Brussels Hotel market along with current design trends
• Some knowledge of Belgium/Brussels building, construction and engineering codes and licences
• Be well connected in the city, and have established relationships with local suppliers, designers and partners in arts, fashion and cultural events
• Be a confident and proactive self-starter with strong project management skills and ability to work independently
• Pre-opening hotel experience is an advantage
• Be experienced of producing a design proposals, costings and plans
• monthly marketing reports for both Corporate Office & Private Ownership.
• Exceptional attention to detail with strong Administration and IT skills including MS packages, with a working knowledge of Adobe suite, Canva, AutoCAD and graphic design 3D software such as Sketchup or Rhino
• Fluency in French and/or Dutch in addition to English is preferred for this role
• During our preopening and opening period you may need to have a flexible approach to working hours

We are defined by our richness of personality and diversity of background and lifestyle so if you think you have what it takes to be our Design Manager at The Standard, Brussels we’d love to hear from you.

All applicants must be eligible to live and work in the European Union. Documented evidence of eligibility will be required from candidates prior to commencing employment.