blue hotel

Project Type: Hotel Fit-Out
Location: Tooting, London
Scope:Strategic Positioning + Architectural Concept
Stage: Pre-Planning Feasibility
Client: Confidential

Giving a three-star hotel a reason to be chosen

As part of an invited competition, Manufacturing Taste was asked to develop the positioning and architectural concept for a hotel in south London.

The commercial challenge was to make a value-led, three-star offer desirable to young professionals and students without relying on expensive specification or competing on price alone.

Our proposition was affordable luxury with the cultural confidence of a lifestyle hotel: not a more expensive product, but a more distinctive one.

From Proposition to Architecture

The design concept draws inspiration from Chris Isaak’s 1986 song Blue Hotel, so the proposed space comprises a palette of midnight blue velvet, exposed concrete and metal - punctuated by glittering sequin jackets mounted as display pieces in an otherwise dark space.

This is, however, not a themed hotel nor does it take the reference literally:

The young professionals targeted by the hotel developer came of age in the 2010s, which witnessed a 1980s revival with synch music and pastel colours (millennial pink anyone?); therefore, the design taps into this to create a distinct brand in an otherwise generic neighbourhood which is on the cusp of gentrification. But even with an 80s reference, the design concept is leaning, not on synth, but on acoustic music, which ruled the 1990s - a decade witnessing a popular revival amongst teenagers who will be the students also targeted by the hotel developer. In a sense, the space aspires to resonate with most sections of Gen Z.

Commercial Objective

In an otherwise generic local hotel market, the identity was designed to build preference through character and emotional resonance, allowing the hotel to compete on more than room rate and convenience.

A Blue Hotel on a lonely high…street — but not for long.