boundary-pushing Shoreditch hotel's new Apple area...
Hotels & Travel
August 18th, 2010
It was only last month that we brought you the scandalously stylish new designer rooms at Shoreditch’s unique luxury-budget sensation, the Hoxton Hotel. Owned by Prêt A Manger founder, Sinclair Beecham, the hotel have added free use of iMacs – and most excitingly – iPads to the list of guest freebies that includes Wi-Fi, phone calls and Prêt breakfasts. Located in their new ‘iHox’ area, we believe they’re currently the only London hotel to offer totally free use of Apple’s latest gift from the gods… the others offering them with rates, deposits or executive suite perks. And don’t you just love the accompanying security signage?
designers let loose on new rooms at luxury budget hotel.....
Hotels & Travel
July 19th, 2010
Shoreditch’s unique luxury-budget – yes, it appears the two can sit side by side – hotel, runs a similar price structure to that of budget airlines, with a low rate available for those booking well in advance and prices increasing as the arrival date nears. It’s a simple but effective concept, and along with super-cool interiors, a bustling bar and restaurant and their sensationally popular £1 room sales, it’s a concept which has brought the Hoxton Hotel huge success. Not content with standing still however, the hotel has recently tasked 3 designers – namely Project Orange, Suzy Hoodless and Adrian Kilby – to work their magic on 3 new rooms, all with ‘East London’ as a theme. The results are predictably outstanding, and each of the new rooms look staggeringly stylish. We’re hoping to get inside them very soon and bring you a more detailed report on the rooms and their designers, until then, here’s some cracking, hot off the press photographs to whet your appetite….
German artist's central Rome hotel is, quite literally, rubbish.....
Hotels & Travel
June 8th, 2010
Last week saw the launch of a pop-up hotel concept by German artist HA Schult – most famous for his ‘Trash Men’ – for Corona Extra Beer’s ‘Corona Save The Beach‘ initiative. The hotel, a conceptual look at how we can expect to see our beaches if dramatic changes are not made sooner rather than later, is constructed almost entirely of garbage and rather amazingly had a supermodel guest as it’s first, and by all accounts she braved an evening – in support of World Environment Day – on one of it’s 2 floors……
East London's finest members' club, now with added rooms....
Hotels & Travel
June 2nd, 2010
Overlooking Foster’s sensational Gherkin, the nearby ‘City’, and Shoreditch itself, Shoreditch House boasts a rooftop pool, garden bar, ‘lazy lawn’ and BBQ on it’s mind-blowing Roof Top, whilst below are numerous bars, a two-lane bowling alley, sauna and steam rooms, gym, Cowshed Spa and a range of dining options…. it’s in short, one of the most mesmerising – and decidedly unpretentious – members’ clubs in the world and part of the all-conquering Soho House group, who boast Soho House Berlin as their latest sensational property. Yet, whilst the design media’s eyes have been firmly fixed on their recent German acquisition, a small collection of rooms have been added to the fold in Shoreditch – offering “vintage twists within an urban setting”. The beautifully furnished, tremendously quaint rooms are realistically titled Tiny, Small and Small+, yet with perfectly reasonable prices to match, they could well find themselves the capital’s most popular stopovers….
fantastically playful hotel design pays homage to area's history....
Architecture
May 25th, 2010
12 minutes on train from Amsterdam, Zaandam was the world’s first area of industry and, thanks to Dutch architects – WAM architecten, it’s rich history is being translated in a thoroughly modern way with their fantastically unique design for Inntel Hotels‘ new property. Using the iconic green wooden houses of the Zaan region, and the assumption that a hotel is your temporary home, as inspiration – Wilfried van Winden has created a truly unique structure by creating the illusion that various examples of these traditional houses, ranging from a notary’s residence to a worker’s cottage, are randomly stacked upon one another…..
bleeding-edge glamour in London's gritty East end....
Hotels & Travel
May 10th, 2010
London’s East End is not exactly brimming with design hotels. Sure, there’s the Andaz near Liverpool Street Station and plush members’ club Shoreditch House, but in the grit and glamour of E2 there’s a distinct lack of sleeping quarters.
Enter entrepreneurial hotelier Loh Lik Peng and his newly opened Town Hall. Located in Bethnal Green, it’s within walking distance of Brick Lane and Columbia Road, an area yet to experience the gentrification of neighbouring Shoreditch….
first rate spa & hotel in London's trendy media hub...
Hotels & Travel
April 30th, 2010
As part of our quest to stay at every hotel in our fair nation’s capital – for the good of our readers, of course – we recently checked into Shepherd’s Bush style-haven, the K West Hotel & Spa with the purpose of giving their recently refurbished spa the once over. Situated a stones throw from the country’s most stylish shopping centre, within close reach of BBC HQ, and a number of the city’s most famous music venues, the K West is perfectly located to attract a significantly cool clientèle of rock stars and media types (Richard Ashcroft was supping Peroni’s in the bar on the night we checked in)….
wonderfully lavish solution for opposed development....
Architecture
April 27th, 2010
With news today that the 138 acres that surround the iconic hillside sign are to be protected – thanks, in no small part, to a £580,000 donation courtesy of ‘The Heff’ – from investors, whose plans were to develop the land with a high-end housing estate, we thought we’d show you this exceptionally lavish concept by well-respected Danish agency, Bayarch. Offering a unique vision for the famous sign, Bayarch propose a sensational hotel, spa, cinema and clubs to overlook the City of Angels, whilst still maintaining the iconic panorama… perhaps someone should show this to the star-studded trust who have ended the prospect of development by purchasing the land for $12.5 from a group of Chicago investors…..