Hotel Design Of The Year

PRESS RELEASE: Conran & Partners win Hotel Design of the Year award for Boundary

Conran & Partners last night won the prestigious Hotel Design of the Year award at the European Hotel Design awards in London for their architecture and interior design on Boundary.

The European Hotel Design Awards are well established as the industry’s premier celebration of hotel design across Europe and judged by a panel of leading hotel designers, architects, owners, operators and developers.

Working on behalf of Prescott & Conran Partners Ltd, Conran & Partners Boundary have converted a Victorian industrial building into a 17-bedroom boutique hotel, a roof top restaurant with bar and grill, fine dining restaurant and the Albion café and food store.

The building had been left unoccupied for many years and at first glance it was obvious that parts of the building’s structure had become slightly dilapidated but Conran & Partners have a reputation for breathing new life in to beautiful old buildings.

Boundary was praised by the judging panel for its sensitive regeneration of a listed building, the witty and unique bedrooms and the quality of the design and food and drink offering in the restaurants and Albion café.

The project took two years to complete as large parts of the building were dilapidated but many parts of the original 1893 configuration had barely changed since its original inception. Conran & Partners demolished the existing mansard and constructed two new floors housing duplex bedrooms with double height living space and bed-deck above.

Tim Bowder-Ridger, Deputy Managing Director of Conran & Partners, said:

“From the outset, the intention was to create something a little different to the usual hotel with subsidiary restaurants and cafés – it was to be a destination in its own right. We are proud of what we have created at Boundary, especially as we have had to overcome numerous obstacles in the course of regenerating the site. We utterly thrilled that the hard work of the team has been acknowledged with this award.”

Each of the 12 rooms has been designed to reflect the style of designers or design movements admired by Terence and include Shaker, Bauhaus, British, Scandinavian, Eames, Josef Hoffman, Andree Putman, Heath Robinson, Eileen Grey, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Charlotte Perriand.

The five suites have been designed by Terence, his wife Vicki Conran, his sister Priscilla Carluccio, Sir David Tang and Polly Dickens, Creative Director of the Conran Shop.

The design team at Conran & Partners worked closely with Conran Contracts who supplied the complete furniture and accessory package for Boundary. With each room and suite individually designed to specific directions and taste, they were required to source a vast array of furniture and products from several suppliers, but managed to maintain their value and customer focus throughout the project.

Sir Terence Conran also won the Outstanding Contribution to Hotel Design award, acknowledging the groups work on a variety of hotels including the Great Eastern Hotel, Boundary and myhotel Bloomsbury in the UK, The Fitzwilliam in Ireland, Das Triest in Austria, The Park Hotels in India, Martinhal in Portugal, The Mandarin Grill at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hong Kong and Ark Hills Spa, Roppongi Hills Spa and Niki Club in Japan.

November 2009