Lowndes Hotel

The Lowndes Hotel is a 1960s concrete building that has little relationship to its urban context, in its size, height, alignment and materiality. The internal ceiling heights are low, and the bedrooms are tiny. To reposition the hotel, the building has been stripped back to its concrete frame, and re-clad entirely.

Project Details +

Project Details

LOCATION: Lowndes Square, London, UK

CLIENT: Jumeirah Hotels & Resorts

DATE: 2017   

STATUS: Concept

SIZE:  2.900 m2 total GIA (43 rooms, 160 m2 restaurant and cafe-bar, 170 m2 Halkin Terrace)


Credits +

Credits

ACME: Alanoud Al Radaideh, Monica Capitanio, Christoph Emenlauer, Katrina Hollis, Ohyun Kwon, Uno Lam, Friedrich Ludewig, Paolo Moretto, Arvin Osia, Thomas Soo, Azizah Sulor, Jack Taylor, Antonio Torres Tebar

Lowndes square is one of the imposing old squares of Knightsbridge, spanning from Harvey Nichols on its northern end to High Commission for Pakistan at its southern end. Most of the residential buildings and embassies on the square date from the mid 19th and early 20th century.

Lowndes Square 1905

Lowndes Square 1990

Lowndes Square

The surrounding facades of Lowndes Square are characterised by grand terraces in white or light yellow tones stucco. The new facade consists of reconstructed stone panels that reinterpret the proportions, tectonics, punctuation, and colours of the context, to create a sense of vertical and horizontal order, in a 21st century idiom.

Original facade

Extend the windows

New stone panels

Final plinth elevation

The ground floor and first floor have been unified into a public plinth structured by double-height arches. Halkin Arcade, an existing urban passageway, has been converted into a double-story arcade leading to new courtyard restaurants. The key count of the hotel has been halved, making this a very upmarket and discrete boutique hotel, in an amazing Knightsbridge location.

Ground floor

First floor

Fourth floor

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