A rooftop beehive was DH Liberty‘s starting point for the overhaul of this boutique hotel in Chelsea, which is finished in rich green and gold accents.
The Clerkenwell-based studio, which is led by founder Dara Huang, was briefed to design luxurious accommodation that celebrated the client’s love of plants.
The My Chelsea hotel owner – who keeps a beehive on the roof and serves its honey to guests – also asked DH Liberty to find a way of referencing this hobby within the decor.
Huang and her team began by creating a greenhouse-like space where guests can drink, eat, or work informally throughout the day.
Topped by a gridded glass roof, the room’s dining area has been completed in “raven black” while the rear features a pale fluted wall.
This monochromatic colour scheme has also been carried over to the furnishings.
“Most of the furniture we used was actually just painted and recycled,” Huang told Dezeen. “We made all of the tables from existing ones that were there, and had the tops sanded and whitewashed.”
“It was interesting painting traditional chairs all black because it automatically made them contemporary,” she added.
The designers covered the front of the bar with gold-hued sheets of brass to emulate the colour of honey.
Transparent, globular lamps from the studio’s own lighting range have been suspended from the ceiling to “provide an organic counterpart to the structural framework of the greenhouse”.
Splashes of colour are provided by forest-green velvet seating and Birds of Paradise plants, which have been dotted throughout the room.
“They really create these coves of intimacy, separating seating areas whilst filling the space with life and peace,” explained Huang.
To update the hotel’s bedrooms, the studio commissioned a local artist to produce small artworks of plants that could typically be seen in the annual Chelsea Flower Show.
They also applied hexagonal tiles in the bathrooms as a subtle reference to honeycomb.
As well as hotels, DH Liberty specialises in residential and office-based projects. The studio has previously used reclaimed glass bottles to create a hanging installation for a workplace in Shoreditch.
At a Dezeen talk last year, Dara Huang also sat down with executives from BIG and Zaha Hadid Architects to discuss how she started her business, and office culture in the architecture industry.
Photography is by Jack Hobhouse.
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