The room sits in an old Shoreditch printworks factory — a working building with good bones and real affection in it. We took it back to the shell, a complete strip-out, then re-cut everything around the bones: the hotel reception folded into one continuous bar and brasserie, the room thrown open to the street, the warmth carried up to the roof.
The old reception desk and the bar became a single gesture — a continuous run of zinc and stone, twelve metres deep into the plan, check-in quietly absorbed into the counter.
A bar that long can intimidate. So the run is broken by marquetry round-tops that turn out from the counter — half-curve islands we came to call threesomes, sized so three friends could gather and feel included rather than strung out in a row. The curve gives the bartender a place to lean in and serve across, too.
New operable windows open the room onto Redchurch Street so it announces itself rather than hides. A short raised area lifts seating nearer the daylight, with a private dining room off it — dressed by Creation Baumann in their acoustic curtain.
Budgets were tight, the clock running — it had to open for summer. Furniture and lighting followed a retail-vintage rule, sourced as if the place had collected for years, so it felt lived-in on day one. The zinc-top sandwich with a marble inlay trimmed cost while reading as pure decadence; the bar pendants were drawn from scratch and made bespoke. Overhead, the ceilings were lacquered to a high gloss to bounce what daylight the room could borrow, and slow timber fans were set turning beneath them — a working factory ceiling, made to shimmer.
Interior architecture, FF&E, art direction and creative vision by Mehrai Design, working as MD Collective — leading the consultant team through a complete strip-out and rebuild.