The Best of UK (Hospitality) vol. 9

HOTEL OVER 200 ROOMS GLOBAL 2021 WINNER
NOBU HOTEL LONDON PORTMAN SQUARE BY DAVID COLLINS STUDIO LTD

David Collins Studio was tasked with designing the ground floor communal areas, restaurant and bar at Nobu Hotel London Portman Square. It was a unique opportunity to create a new Nobu flagship property. The hotel marks a relocation of the original Nobu Berkeley Street restaurant, also designed by David Collins Studio. The Nobu team were keen that the new restaurant retained the vibe that David Collins Studio created for Berkeley Street.  The design concept focused on the guests’ journey through the hotel spaces. The former property had no active use at ground level or street presence, so a large part of the brief was to provide a new presence to the entrance.

A new double height Lobby provided the perfect opportunity for a memorable arrival experience. David Collins Studio commissioned British sculptor Ivan Black to create a 7-metre-tall kinetic sculpture, which is suspended in the centre of the room. Utilising the daylight that streams through the glass façade, the rotating aluminium fins cast shadow across the room. Clean lines and geometric shapes used in the Lobby’s interior architecture of columns and colonnades creates a calm environment for guests.

HOTEL UNDER 50 ROOMS GLOBAL 2021 WINNER
PORT HOTEL BY IMRAAN ISMAIL INTERIORS

The brief was to help create a unique British coastal town hotel experience through innovative design and within a limited budget. The designers were asked to work with affordable, practical and long lasting materials that would complement and contrast with each other to create a warm, welcoming and new luxury costal hotel experience.

Importantly, they were asked to create a clean and contemporary space that would not date, would remain practical to maintain in the long term, yet always be considered as a front runner in affordable British coastal town design. Imraan Ismail Interiors took cognisance of the surrounding environment and as briefed, looked to work in natural costal tones and materials to create warmth – materials that would wear well and would stay ahead of interior trends without great cost. It was asked that the designer was to use the Port Hotel icon in playful and surprising ways to engage the audience and hotel guests through our interior design.

SPA/SPA HOTEL 2021 WINNER
TERME DI SATURNIA NATURAL DESTINATION BY THDP

The  resort,  founded in 1919, has just turned 100 years old, and is located to the nearby Gorello Water Falls, both forming one of the most unique spa complexes in the world, for the spectacular  geological dynamic conformation of the waters, which flow from the crater and end up in gentle waterfalls with shallow natural shallow pools.

The design of this important project was entrusted to a team of professionals specialized in different specific skills, all with backgrounds of experience suitable for different roles.  The THDP studio, based in London and Turin and with an international background,  carried out the interior project, with architect Manuela Mannino, Nicholas Hickson and the collaboration of Architect Francesca Benedetti, during two years of renovations. The direction and co-ordination of this team was entrusted to the engineer Patrizia Scafati,  who followed the  technical coordination of Terme di Saturnia.