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A hotel designed on its maritime history which embodies the elegance of a transatlantic 1920s liner
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Design Research Studio created the interiors for the Mondrian hotel which hails from New York.

With 359 bedrooms, two bars, one restaurant, a spa and a cinema allowed the studio to explore a wide range of environments.

Design Research Studio created the interiors for the Mondrian hotel which hails from New York.

With 359 bedrooms, two bars, one restaurant, a spa and a cinema allowed the studio to explore a wide range of environments.

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Above
A giant copper-clad wall shaped like a ship's hull curves into the lobby from outside, with a reception desk set into the form.
Above A giant copper-clad wall shaped like a ship's hull curves into the lobby from outside, with a reception desk set into the form.
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PHOTOGRAPHY
Emily Andrews

ARCHITECT
Warren Platner

For us at Design Research Studio a Hotel is a dream job.
It allows us to work in so many different typologies – Spa's and Bar's, restaurants and bedrooms, conference rooms and corridors. The idea that we can create a complete universe that people can live in for a night or a week, what’s not to like?

The building itself was designed by American architect Warren Platner in the 1970s. Originally designed as a luxury hotel, the building's brief was never fulfilled and it instead was occupied as office. Among these was a shipping company ‘Sea Container’ from which the building now draws its name. This maritime history and the Anglo-American relationship between Design Research Studio and Morgans Hotel Group, form the design inspiration for the project. Drawing on the theme of a transatlantic cruise liner for inspiration.

As the inspiration behind the hotel we thought that the transatlantic liners of the golden period of cruisers was a fitting departure point. We wanted the rooms to have a feeling of a cabin, with everything fitted, compact and properly thought through.

We made a massive intervention to the arrival sequence with a massive structure inspired by a ship’s hull piercing through from the outside canopy into the lobby and right through past the elevators into the restaurant, all clad with copper.