Inhabit is London’s first wellness-focused boutique hotel, providing an experience based around ideas of community and discovery where conventional boundaries between front and back of house have been blurred to encourage guests to spend less time in their rooms, and more time enjoying the hotel.
Formed of a collection of six restored, grade 2 listed Georgian townhouses, the layout rationalises a series of previously labyrinthine spaces and reinstates a more historically accurate plan form.
The lounge is full of comfortable seating © Nicholas Worley
Sustainability was at the core of the design process; during renovation, 270 items weighing nearly 3 tonnes were diverted from landfills via the third sector marketplace, Globechain.
Socially conscious interiors also fuse Scandinavian influences with classic British design, including collaborations with social enterprise Goldfinger, which offers training and carpentry apprenticeships for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds in their local borough.
Table by Goldfinger © Nicholas Worley
A key feature of the design was the kitchen table - an oversized display with integrated heating and cooling that forms the centrepiece of the hotel restaurant. Conceived as a means of breaking down the traditional boundaries between front and back of house, the table becomes a place for congregation at meal times, encouraging guests to interact with one another.
The kitchen table © Nicholas Worley
Kitchen dining © Nicholas Worley
Casual seating © Nicholas Worley
The communal table by social enterprise Goldfinger © Nicholas Worley
Making of the Goldfinger table © Goldfinger
A library space was created as a quiet room for quests to read, study or work. Comfortable seating, bookshelves full of content and large original windows that fill the space with natural daylight create the perfect environment.
Timber panelling painted in green was used as a wayfinding device to identify the central stair and lift core. All of the spaces are configured around this central feature.
Library space © Nicholas Worley
Original concept image for the lounge and kitchen
Reception area © Nicholas Worley
Lift lobby © Nicholas Worley
Ground floor plan
