Originally a 182 bedroom, 3-star Comfort Inn hotel, located in London Heathrow.
The Brief
The client’s brief was for the upgrade and rebrand to a 4-star Mercure hotel, with scope to enhance the external look and feel of the building to match the upgraded quality throughout the hotel. The works included a complete refurbishment of all bedrooms and pubic areas, together with extensive external treatments including cladding of the external walls and construction of a new entrance canopy.
New Arrival Experience
Our Approach
For the external works, our approach was quickly turned to the arrival experience, or the lack thereof. The entrance should act as an invitation and should offer the best possible first impression of the building and company. To achieve this, we had to re-define the entrance, and this naturally led us to an exploration of the sense of place and the transition into the building. The external works treatments were empathetic, yet suitably modernised to uplift and improve the overall look of the building. A strong, dominant canopy structure with strategic lighting design, along with subtle changes in surface finishes, all function as a permanent entrance reference point. A tempting invitation into the building. The dull, existing walls were cladded with a smooth aluminium system in a simple rectangular grid. The 20mm shadow gaps and clutter free secret fixings maintain the sleek look and the subtle uniformity against the striking new canopy worked hand-in-hand.
