Image Credit : Gareth Gardner
Project Overview
The Principal Edinburgh Charlotte Square is a luxury 4-star hotel on the beautiful Charlotte Square UNESCO world heritage site. Completed in September 2017, the £25m transformation of the former Roxburghe hotel included a complete revamp of the hotel’s public spaces including the reception, ballroom and meeting rooms, plus new F&B offerings in the form of former courtyard space ‘The Garden’, plus new Levantine-inspired bar & restaurant – BABA. All of the hotel’s 181 rooms and 18 suites, plus linking lobbies and corridors, were also completely redesigned.
Like a cosmopolitan clubhouse, the scheme for The Principal Edinburgh Charlotte Square is eclectic, intriguing and full of references to travel, from set-dressing with vintage suitcases, hats and canes to The Map Room, where the walls are lined with historic maps from around the world. The interior feel is plush and elegant, with interesting and varied furniture and tactile, high-quality fabrics, such as richly-coloured velvets and leathers, all set within a series of stand-out individual spaces.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Principal Hotel Company (Client)
Goddard Littlefair (Interior Designer)
3D Reid (Architect)
Project Brief
For the client, differentiation from its nearby sister hotel was key, with the need to appeal to a different market and develop a ‘hipper’, more contemporary feel, whilst still respecting the building’s Georgian heritage.
Several period elements were highlighted and incorporated into the design scheme, from the refurbished original archway entrance to the hotel, to the refurbished listed detailing and cornicing within the guestrooms.
Inspired by the Georgian townhouses that make up the building, the design team developed a fictional ‘owner’ of the house, (a well-travelled, slightly eccentric Scottish gentleman with a taste for the finer things in life), that provided inspiration for the scheme. To create a strong sense of character and personality, a deliberately eclectic approach was taken with all the furnishings, to give the impression of pieces acquired organically over a period of time, and to reflect a fantasy ‘domestic’ owner’s cosmopolitan style and taste.
Project Innovation/Need
As guests enter, vintage walking sticks, hats and bags de-formalise the space and reinforce the sense of entering a private residence. The lobby features a ‘salon-hang’ art treatment, made up of vintage etchings, original paintings and contemporary prints and sketches, alluding to the private collection of a well-travelled individual and relays a narrative about global travel and Edinburgh itself.
To elevate the positioning of the hotel and meet the demands of the target market, the existing room stock was updated with carefully rationalised room layouts and improved facilities for guests. New room layouts maximise the views of the surrounding city, as well as creating comfortable sight lines within the room towards the TVs, which are accommodated on bespoke artists’ easels. The space has also been reorganised to provide a generous seating and lounge area around the bed, improving the flow between these spaces, that provide comfort and flexibility to the guest.
No two rooms are the same, with each guestroom featuring eclectic artwork and accessories that reference the overall theme of travel within the hotel and contribute to the pre-established feel of the scheme. The cabinetry carries details from trunks and suitcases from the golden age of travel and exploration, whilst tweeds and tartans make reference to the local area and create a sense of place.
Design Challenge
The scope included both the original listed building as well as a new wing extension, which meant there was a large discrepancy between the guestroom types. Two distinct design schemes were developed to align the quality of rooms, that respected the character of the original property, whilst bringing individuality to the new. Considerable effort was made to ensure that the more uniform guestrooms in the new wing reflected the same sense of character seen in other areas of the building, whilst the ‘old-block’ guestrooms make the most of period details and balances tradition with a more youthful feel.
To address practically from a guest perspective, greater provision was made for storage, with traditional desks replaced with tables that can be used for comfortable in-room dining as well as working. Wide full-length mirrors in the guestrooms are not only practical, but maximise the sense of light and space.
In the new wing rooms, painted timber tongue-and-groove panelling has been cleverly deployed on the headboard walls to optimise the layout without further structural work, whilst also creating a platform for artwork and accessories.
Sustainability
A large element of the design scheme was the resourceful use of upcycling to reduce the need for newly manufactured materials. From the reclaimed items in ‘The Garden’, such as the glazed doors and fretwork screens sourced from architectural salvage yards, to the reclaimed cinema seating and the re-finished timber bar top in BABA, our designers found innovative ways to incorporate reusable items into the scheme.. This helped to develop the pre-established feel of the hotel, as well as reducing the environmental impact of the project.
Further examples include the use of the existing sanitary ware from the original hotel which was reused and placed within the new bathroom designs in the old block rooms. Finally, all the timber used in the project was sustainably sourced and FSC certified, and surplus timber from the bedrooms was reused where possible, throughout the project.
Interior Design - Hospitality
This award celebrates innovative and creative building interiors, with consideration given to space creation and planning, furnishings, finishes, aesthetic presentation and functionality. Consideration also given to space allocation, traffic flow, building services, lighting, fixtures, flooring, colours, furnishings and surface finishes.
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