Wawyé Oasis at Gun Lake receives an ENR Midwest Merit Award!
HBG Design is excited to announce that the Gun Lake Casino Resort Wawyé Oasis received a Merit Award in ENR Midwest's Best Projects awards program in the Sports/Entertainment category! Congratulations to Gun Lake Casino Resort, the Gun Lake Tribe, the HBG Design team, and the entire project consultant team!
When winter grips Michigan in icy temperatures, guests at Gun Lake Casino Resort are now floating beneath a sunlit glass dome in a lush, 82-degree tropical paradise. Debuting in May 2025, the six-story, 32,000-square-foot Wawyé Oasis redefines what’s possible for year-round resort design—seamlessly shifting from daytime pool retreat to high-capacity concert venue, nightclub, and banquet space. Shaped by solar studies and engineered as a massive glass “sundial,” the Oasis is both sculptural and supremely functional, capturing natural daylight while shielding guests from the region’s harsh climate.
In TG&H: Nathan Peak - The New Definition of Casino Design Efficiency
Tribal Gaming and Hospitality recently published an interview with Nathan Peak, AIA, President of HBG Design, sharing insights into what's next in the world of casino design!
As casino resorts become increasingly complex businesses, the definition of efficiency is evolving. TG&H sat down with HBG Design President Nathan Peak, AIA, to discuss how savvy operators are using design as a strategic tool to create long-term value.
TG&H: For years, efficiency in casino design has focused on cost and speed to market. What's changing?
NP: Those priorities still matter, but we’re seeing more focus on long-term business strategies. Operators are recognizing that designing efficiency is about creating a high-performing operation that delivers value across the entire business, influencing employee productivity and guest satisfaction, as well as maintenance costs and future growth.
Strategic thinking begins early. I’d challenge any operator to ask themselves: if you’re not bringing operations, employee experience, guest expectations, lifecycle costs, and long-term adaptability into the conversation from day one, then what could you miss in creating not just a project investment but a competitive advantage?
TG&H: If an owner or operator wants to design a more efficient casino resort, what are the top priorities they should focus on?
- Design for the Entire Lifecycle, Not Just the Grand Opening
Project decisions shouldn’t be driven by opening-day budgets and schedules. While important, the real measure of success is how a property performs over the next 10, 20, or even 30 years. Durable furnishings and finishes, resilient infrastructure, and adaptable planning can significantly reduce maintenance needs, replacement costs, and operational disruptions. The goal is not simply to spend less today; it's to maximize value over the life of the asset.
- Plan for Change Before It Happens
Everything evolves. Investing in flexible building systems and infrastructure helps a property adapt to new technologies, changing customer expectations, and future expansions without requiring costly renovations. Designing infrastructure capacity, strategic adjacencies, and expansion options from the start enables operators to meet future needs while minimizing business disruptions.
- Make the Employee Experience a Design Priority
One of the most effective ways to improve operations is by enhancing the work environment. Efficient back-of-house layouts, convenient access points, thoughtfully planned support spaces, and streamlined circulation can help teams work faster, communicate better, and deliver more consistent service. Employee-focused design is based on a simple yet often overlooked reality: the guest experience is heavily influenced by the employees delivering it.
- Align Operations and Guest Experience from the Start
The best-performing resorts don't treat operational efficiency and guest experience as competing priorities; they’re designed simultaneously. Service functions, loading areas, and support operations should work seamlessly behind the scenes. When operations are carefully integrated into the design process, properties can deliver exceptional guest experiences while maintaining speed, consistency, and efficiency.
TG&H: What does this mean for the future of casino resort development?
NP: The most successful developments will be those that intentionally connect operations, guest experience, and asset value from the very beginning. Properties leading the next generation of gaming will be designed to work smarter every day after opening. That’s where design becomes more than a project investment—it becomes a competitive advantage.
Continue the Conversation
Every casino resort faces a different set of operational priorities, guest expectations, and long-term investment decisions.
If these ideas connect with plans underway for your property, Nathan Peak and the HBG Design team would welcome the opportunity to exchange perspectives and learn more about the challenges and opportunities you are considering.
DOWNLOAD HBG DESIGN’S 2026 HOSPITALITY REPORT
Nathan Peak, AIA, President, HBG Design
[email protected]
From OIGA: Deidre Brady's 'Mastering the Build' Session Recap
Plan Your Vision. Anticipate Change.
By Deidre Brady, AIA, NCIDQ, LEED AP BD+C, Principal, HBG Design
Casino resort projects are moving forward in an environment where construction costs, financing, supply chains, labor availability, and operational priorities can shift quickly. While owners cannot predict every change, effective casino resort project planning can help them prepare for it.
During my recent presentation at the OIGA Conference & Trade Show, entitled 'Mastering the Build', I focused on three strategies for navigating uncertainty while protecting long-term project value:
- Establish a clear vision,
- Proactively plan for change, and
- Optimize casino design and project delivery efficiencies.
Start with a Long-Term Casino Resort Vision
Successful casino resort development begins by defining what success means for the owner and the property. Is the priority to open as quickly as possible, generate revenue earlier, maintain budget certainty, minimize guest disruption, improve operational efficiency, or create the highest-quality resort in the region?
Most projects balance several of these goals. Establishing their relative importance early gives the team a shared framework for making decisions when schedule, budget, quality, and operational considerations compete.
A long-term casino resort master plan connects those priorities to future amenities, infrastructure, circulation, operations, and expansion opportunities. Even when the full vision cannot be delivered at once, the development can be organized into achievable phases, with each investment supporting future growth.
Create a Proactive Plan for the Unexpected
Market demand, funding, budgets, supply chains, and operational needs may evolve throughout design and construction. Proactive planning creates options for responding without losing momentum or compromising the long-term vision.
Phased casino development, early procurement, and fast-track project delivery can help owners advance high-value components sooner. These strategies also require timely decisions and close coordination across planning, design, documentation, procurement, and construction.
Optimize Casino Design and Delivery Efficiencies
Design efficiency is not simply about reducing square footage or initial construction cost. It is about helping the casino resort perform more effectively over time.
Thoughtful planning can streamline operations, improve employee workflows, strengthen the guest experience, and allow spaces to adapt as market needs change. Addressing these priorities early can also reveal shared-service opportunities, infrastructure requirements, and operational efficiencies before they become expensive to implement.
Assemble the Right Casino Project Team from Day One
Ultimately, the right team creates the most successful outcome. Bringing ownership, operations, casino design, construction, financial, and technical experts together from day one allows us to identify risks, test assumptions, and make informed decisions while the greatest range of options remains available.
When the project team aligns around a clear vision, change becomes more manageable, decisions become more purposeful, and the casino resort is better positioned to deliver lasting value—from opening day through every phase of future growth.
Nathan Peak in Casino Style: Using AI as a Design Tool
Artificial intelligence is at the forefront of technologies streamlining the casino design process.
Nathan Peak, AIA, president of HBG Design, recently contributed insights to the feature article, Friction Free Design, in Global Gaming Business' Casino Style Magazine.
Nathan says that the introduction of AI technology does not replace the human element in design.
“While AI has increased the speed and options available to us in our ideation process during conceptual design, it has not diminished the importance of authentic, original design by our staff of professional architects and interior designers,” he says.
“It’s imperative that they continue to engage in their own discovery to grow professionally. In this sense, AI is used to enhance, rather than replace, creative processes and is primarily used for brainstorming, research, and illustrating design options, allowing our team to explore more possibilities with clients in a shorter timeframe.
“We view AI as a tool among many, useful for ideation and streamlining tasks, but always requiring human oversight and creative control to maintain the integrity of our work… We lightheartedly talk about AI as ‘almost intelligent.’ It’s strictly a tool. We give it very specific parameters and provide explicit guardrails, never assuming every answer generated is correct. In essence, all AI-assisted results are subject to the same rigorous vetting and review standards as any other project deliverable, ensuring that AI does not replace the team’s QA/QC process.”
Saving Time
If there’s one thing the AI tool has done, it’s save time, and, with the assistance of other advancing digital technologies, improve efficiency within a given project.
“AI and advancing technologies have shortened project timelines, particularly in the early stages of conceptual design, by enabling rapid assistance in generating design options for client presentations,” says Peak at HBG. “For example, we can now respond with immediate changes to renderings in real time, based on client feedback via AI prompts and scripts.”
Peak adds that AI can map out all details of a project and present a more complete picture to the client. “It gives us an advantage in the speed at which we’re able to illustrate potential solutions our clients are seeking,” he says.
“For instance, if we’re doing a renovation, when it comes to very specific carpet patterns, signage, or a cage design, we can take a photograph of an interior space and combine those visuals with quick sketches and original design narratives using AI, to rapidly combine elements and ideas that our clients can react to much faster than we were able to do previously.
“AI tools enable our teams to start design conversations earlier with our clients without extensive initial data collection. Especially by employing illustrative, image-based AI tools, we can move the design process forward early, before full site measurements are completed, which is more efficient and effective. Data collection is still necessary, but it’s no longer the first step, which accelerates the overall process.”
One of Many Tools
AI and other modern tools have created a casino design discipline that will continue to evolve in years to come.
“We foresee increased efficiency by AI acting as an additional layer of review, freeing up staff for other tasks, and laying the groundwork for more interactive client relationships using collaborative AI tools,” says Peak at HBG.
“That said, we can’t stress the continued reliance on human oversight for quality assurance and validation enough. Our goal is to shape a shared vision with our clients; AI tools provide more opportunity for design professionals to connect with clients. It mobilizes a more collaborative design approach in real time that accelerates our connection to a client’s vision.”
Read the full feature Friction Free Design in Global Gaming Business' Casino Style Magazine to learn more about how AI is being incorporated as an ideation tool during casino resort design.
Emily Marshall & Thor Harland on Placemaking, Contextual Design
Designers and architects in markets across the U.S. take creative cues from local geography, history and culture.
For Emily Marshall, interior design leader, and Thor Harland, senior associate, architecture and design for HBG Design, starting with a blank page before designing a project creates unlimited potential.
“We think about where the space is, the local identity, then how we want the guests to feel,” says Marshall. “What’s the story we want to tell? What’s the property’s identity? Also very important operationally, what’s the flow? And where is the excitement and escape? We start with a concept, and the interior and architecture develop from that.”
“It takes a forensic investigation into things like the site, the climate, the patterns of use, the history, the client,” says Harland, who approaches that journey with “humbleness and openness.”
Placemaking in Tribal Casino Resort Design
“With Native American projects, there’s such a passion for who our clients are and their culture. If we can create an architecture that’s reflective of that, that mimics that—not so much literally, but purposefully, in every design move—it makes for a stronger project,” he says.
“This place-based idea is a journey towards authenticity that is unique to a site and unique to the client. You can’t just pick it up and move it anywhere else, because it wouldn’t function as well. That, for us, is a successful project.”
The work continues “from early concepts through construction documents,” says Marshall. “We’re with the client making decisions on big-picture geometry all the way down to the tile in the guest room. If we can always tie those decisions back to a common thread, it creates a consistency in the design.”
Contextual Design that Enhances Year Round Guest Experience
HBG’s work on the Gun Lake Casino Resort in Wayland, Michigan stands out for Marshall as “one of our finest examples of place-making architecture.” Harland concurs, calling it “one of the best examples of creative, thoughtful depth, from early massing to the materials chosen on the interior. The Gun Lake Tribe was very ambitious, very forward-thinking. They wanted to create something that hadn’t been seen, that was completely new, avant-garde to the area, and make a statement. For us it was important to meet that passion and excitement, and create and carry through that momentum.
“It’s Michigan, with very harsh winters, so the tribe wanted to create an enclosed tropical oasis within.” HBG created an egg-shaped, glass-enclosed atrium, aligned east to west for maximum sun exposure. While dramatic, it’s also functional and can be used for entertainment.
“We created a compelling piece of architecture that’s dynamic and cool to look at,” Harland says. “It also functions better than if we went with just a simple form, like a circle or a square.”
From the first view of a resort rising from the landscape to the smallest details—subtle references to ecology and culture in materials, finishes, color palette, etc.—place-based design tells a story, creating meaningful connections among guests, communities and their shared environment.
Read the full feature Everything in its Place in Global Gaming Business' Casino Style Magazine to learn more about how context and regional authenticity drive casino resort design.
Ask the Experts: Indian Gaming – A Look Forward
Kelly DeVine Offers Insights for Indian Gaming Magazine's 2026 'Ask the Experts: Indian Gaming – A Look Forward'
Kelly DeVine, Principal & Director of Strategic Partnerships, HBG Design
From Indian Gaming Magazine January/February 2026 Issue
As tribes consider their long-term economic visions and land development options, there has been a shift in how casino resort destinations are being planned. While the destination resort has long been the goal, what’s emerging is a more holistic, integrated town-center style approach, reimagined as a larger, tribally owned economic ecosystem anchored by the casino resort.
Signature resort “wow” amenities like gaming, hotels, pools, spas, and event centers remain critical. What’s changing is how those resort amenities are positioned within a broader planned vision – organized from the casino and hotel, layered with complementary amenities and community infrastructure. This more intentional approach supports longer stays, creates customer loyalty, and greater community economic opportunity.
Resort guests need basics as much as indulgences, and when those needs are met on tribal land – through convenience stores and fuel centers, health and wellness offerings including CBD retail, and destination-oriented shopping – it creates a more livable experience and greater benefit for all.
Looking ahead, we expect this integrated planning approach will continue gaining momentum, with casino resorts anchoring more self-sufficient town centers. By keeping both guest and tribal member spending on tribal land, this strategy strengthens local economies and expands long-term opportunities for tribal communities.
HBG's Ross Burch on the 2026 HD Summit, San Diego
HBG’s Dallas office Interior Design Studio Manager, Ross Burch, was excited to attend the HD Summit 2026 in San Diego on March 11-13, joining hospitality leaders for educational sessions, networking, and conversations focused on the future of hotel and resort design.
Set within the beautifully restored Hotel del Coronado, the 2026 HD Summit gathered hospitality leaders, designers, and innovators for several days of inspiration along the San Diego coast. The iconic resort offered a setting that perfectly reflected the summit’s theme of honoring history while shaping the future of hospitality design.
Highlights included powerful insights from Treger Strasberg, founder of Humble Design, whose work demonstrates the profound social impact design can have, along with candid leadership perspectives from Emmy Award winning Producer, Lindsay Shookus. The summit concluded with an unforgettable live performance by artist David Garibaldi, blending art, energy, and storytelling into a powerful closing moment.
Together, the speakers and setting created a memorable experience that celebrated creativity, community, and the evolving role of hospitality design.
Thank you so much to Alissa Ponchione, and the entire HD Team that tirelessly worked to make this conference so intentional and impactful!
Ross Burch
HBG Design Dallas Office Interior Design Studio Leader
Designing for Distinction: VIP Suites that Define the Guest Experience
When it comes to hotel design, no space is more powerful—or more defining—than the VIP suite. These rarefied sanctuaries are not simply accommodations. The casino resort curates these private domains exclusively for its most loyal and high-value guests. Here, privacy, prestige, and personalization become the ultimate amenities.
For properties competing in today’s hospitality market, suites offer more than luxury—they are strategic assets that deliver strong returns. By offering one-of-a-kind, invitation-only spaces that can’t be replicated elsewhere, resorts build loyalty and memorable guest experiences. HBG Design is trusted nationwide to create signature sanctuaries. Each balances bold design statements with the comforts elite guests expect.
The Ogema Suite at Gun Lake Casino Resort
At the heart of Gun Lake Casino Resort’s $300M expansion in Wayland, Michigan, the Ogema Suite crowns the new 252-key hotel tower as its premier two-story penthouse. Meaning “Chief” in the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians’ language, the 3,096-square-foot suite is the pinnacle of prestige within the hospitality setting.
Reserved for the resort’s most important patrons, the suite offers a private elevator and dramatic countryside views. Two-story living spaces, walnut herringbone floors, radiant heating, and a bespoke crystal chandelier heighten the sense of privilege. A sculptural floating stair adds distinction and artistry. With INNCOM smart technology, drapery and lighting respond seamlessly, making the guest experience effortless and striking.
The Ogema Suite is more than a stay—it is a premier environment that symbolizes leadership and luxury, ensuring the property’s best guests are rewarded with an unforgettable experience.
Third-Level VIP Suites at Four Winds South Bend Casino & Hotel
At Four Winds South Bend, the resort elevates privacy to a new dimension. It dedicates the entire third floor to VIP hospitality suites, creating a select tier of accommodations for its best guests.
Designed for private receptions, catered parties, and intimate gatherings, these suites feature tailored aesthetics ranging from lighter, feminine-inspired palettes to darker, masculine tones. Guests enjoy private bars, screened dining nooks, fireplaces, luxurious living and bedrooms, and terraces—some with dedicated whirlpools.
By offering a level reserved only for high-value players and dignitaries, Four Winds guarantees its most loyal guests an experience that feels indulgent, privileged, and deeply personal.
Private Cottages at Rain Rock Casino Resort
At Rain Rock Casino Resort in Northern California’s Siskiyou region, intimacy defines the guest experience. Designers envisioned eight boutique cottage suites as lodge-like retreats for the property’s most valued visitors.
Nestled into landscaped grounds, the cottages embody HBG Design’s “Journey Upriver” narrative. Their power lies in the privacy and retreat they offer. Moreover, warm woods, layered stone, and spa-like interiors connect VIP guests to place, while also granting the privilege of staying apart from the main hotel.
By layering seclusion with cultural storytelling, the cottages ensure Rain Rock’s most valued guests receive a one-of-a-kind hospitality encounter.
Hotel Suites at Golden Mesa Casino
At Golden Mesa Casino Hotel in Guymon, Oklahoma, designers created boutique-inspired suites for the resort’s most discerning guests. These suites balance sophistication with simplicity.
A distinctive wooden portal signals arrival into a premier space. Inside, accent art wallcoverings, oversized pendants, and custom carpeting bring individuality. Clean-lined vanities and refined finish palettes enhance comfort. The spa-inspired shower, with dark mullions and glass, becomes a sophisticated centerpiece.
At Golden Mesa, tailored details deliver a personal, upscale experience that strengthens guest loyalty.
Prestige as the Ultimate Amenity
From Gun Lake’s dramatic penthouse to Four Winds’ dedicated VIP floor, Rain Rock’s private cottages, and Golden Mesa’s boutique suites, HBG Design’s work demonstrates one truth: the best guests deserve the best spaces.
Privacy, prestige, and personalization form the common thread—transforming suites into rewards, retreats, and lasting memories that strengthen loyalty. For casino resorts, these rooms are not just lavish showcases of design—they are strategic investments with measurable returns in guest satisfaction, reputation, and repeat visitation.
For a resort’s most valued guests, the VIP suite remains the ultimate expression of design and devotion.
A Journey Upriver: The Rain Rock Experience
HBG’s Design of the New Rain Rock Casino Hotel is Rooted in Land and Culture
A Story Written in the Landscape
Within the mountains of Yreka, California, the Karuk Tribe’s Rain Rock Resort Hotel rises from the rugged beauty of the Siskiyou landscape. Designed by HBG Design and opened May/June 2025, the 78,995-square-foot casino and hotel expansion tells a story rooted in land, culture, and connection.
Inspired by the HBG team's “Journey Upriver” concept, the design carries guests along a path shaped by the Klamath River itself—flowing through valleys and forests, into lakes and up toward the mountains—where each bend reveals a new experience and every space reflects the enduring spirit of the Karuk people.
At HBG Design, we believe architecture should tell the story of place. For Rain Rock, that story unfolds in four archetypes drawn from the natural world - the Bountiful Forest, the Winding River, the Majestic Mountains, and the Tranquil Lake.
“As designers, our goal was to craft an experience rooted in the spirit of the Siskiyou landscape and the cultural narrative of the Karuk Tribe,” reflects Joe Baruffaldi, AIA, Principal & Project Manager at HBG Design. “Every design move—from the arrangement of cottages to the choice of an earthy palette—was about strengthening that sense of place and community.”
The journey flows to the Tribal Council Boardroom and semi-private terrace. From there, it flows across the serene pool deck and anchors the private outdoor cottages as sanctuaries of reflection.
Each environment becomes a passage in the guest’s journey, moving them as naturally as the river shapes the land.
The expansion introduces 72 guestrooms and eight boutique cottages, balancing luxury with intimacy.
Spa-inspired baths, custom finishes, curated art, and warm natural palettes anchor the interiors in their Siskiyou setting. Together, fire pits and the poolside garden extend the story outdoors.
Materiality grounds the project in authenticity. Stone, wood, and metal echo the surrounding terrain. In harmony, fluid patterns and tactile textiles weave the natural story indoors. Public spaces gather around a glowing hearth, an anchor of warmth and welcome.
Beyond its restorative comforts, Rain Rock is growing as a regional entertainment destination. The expansion infuses new energy with 175 gaming positions across the 20,000-square-foot floor. It transforms the sports bar and unveils a banquet hall where gatherings and celebrations take root.
The Rain Rock Casino Resort Hotel is an invitation to journey. It invites guests to escape into the Siskiyous and follow the metaphorical river from vibrant spaces to sanctuaries. Along its flow, guests discover the enduring bond between design, nature, and community.
HBG is Setting a New Design Documentation Standard
Our teams are enhancing design documentation accuracy through streamlined BIM workflows.
At HBG Design, we understand that exceptional architecture depends not only on great ideas. It also depends on how well those ideas are communicated through our documents. Design documentation is the critical bridge between concept and construction—and we’ve made that bridge stronger, smarter, and more reliable.
BIM Leadership Team
That’s why we’ve invested heavily in streamlining our BIM workflows, optimizing our Revit standards, and developing a more collaborative, integrated approach to design documentation. Processes are strategically led by a specialized BIM team - Documentation & Specification Leader/Senior Associate, Chris Devine, AIA; BIM Manager/Associate Chase Percer; and Practice Leader/Senior Associate, Leslie Thompson. These enhancements are helping us produce more accurate, coordinated, and efficient design documents—while reducing risk, change orders, and schedule impacts during construction.
Organized BIM Workflow Strategies
Our team uses a cloud-based approach built on Revit and Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC) to enhance collaboration, secure data access, and bring consistency to every project.
- Real-time Synchronization: Design and consultant teams work in a synchronized Revit environment, where program data and model information align throughout the entire process.
- Custom Revit Templates: We’ve embedded our QA standards and enhanced workflows directly into our Revit templates, giving every project a consistent starting point and a framework for success.
- Smart Content Management: Our library of parametric Revit 2D and 3D families and standard detail views helps eliminate redundant modeling.
- Automation & Model Health: Add-ons and internal tools help us automate repetitive tasks, maintain model integrity, and support staff training—all inside the project environment.
By standardizing and simplifying BIM processes, we’re helping project teams focus more energy on design thinking, problem-solving, and coordination—where their time is most valuable.
Consultant Integration from the Start
HBG Design's documentation process includes full coordination with our consultant teams from the outset. Standardized workflows and technology platforms support real-time collaboration and allow all partners to stay in sync as the project progresses.
A Culture of Quality, Not Just a Checkpoint
Our quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) systems are integral to our workflow. These aren't just isolated review phases—they’re embedded into how our teams think and work across every project phase.
- QA starts early: With clear expectations for design documentation completeness, constructability, and coordination. Everyone on the team takes ownership of quality.
- QC adds a second perspective: Senior architects, interior designers, and reviewers outside the core team review drawings at key milestones for accuracy and alignment with HBG standards.
- Collaborative review in Bluebeam Studio: Allows teams to markup and resolve document comments in real time from anywhere.
For our clients, this means more accurate bids and schedules and a final product that faithfully reflects the design vision.
We’re constantly evolving our documentation systems to better support our clients, the contractor, our consultants. This contributes to the success of every project we touch.
At HBG Design, we believe that great documentation is great design. It's the difference between an idea that looks good on paper and a space that works beautifully in the real world.