The V&A Hotel is situated on the water’s edge of the V&A Waterfront harbour basin. Its location is in the heart of the Waterfront with the other façade facing onto the Nelson Mandela piazza and food market. The Client, Newmark Hotels, wanted to take advantage of this and open up their existing ground floor restaurant to the passing pedestrian foot traffic and views.

The hotel was last refurbished some 20 years ago and needed a facelift. Our brief was to upgrade the ground floor restaurant and reception area – the upgrade was not only for aesthetic reasons but also for practical reasons, as the popularity of the hotel has meant that the reception area receives busloads of tourists, and the reception area needed to be designed in such a way that is robust and large enough to accommodate this.

The inherited structure, plus the fully functioning hotel during construction made this a challenging project. Ultimately the result has achieved a buzzing space with increased turnover for the client.