Sitting majestically above Leicester Square, in its very own island site, The Londoner took the design and architecture community’s breath away when it opened in 2021. One year on, Editor Hamish Kilburn meets Rob Steul, the Creative Director of Edwardian Hotels to learn more about the unparalleled design and wellness narrative…
It was one of the most ambitious architecture and hotel development projects that Leicester Square had ever seen. The plans for the world’s first ‘super boutique’ hotel, The Londoner, designed by Yabu Pushelberg, engineer experts at Arup Associates and artist Ian Monroe, reportedly cost £5 million and included 15-storeys of innovative design and architecture.
Rob Steul, the Creative Director of Edwardian Hotels, was the puppet master – AKA architect – behind the magnificent and innovative performance. Due to urban planning height restrictions, Steul and his team proposed a 30-metre subterranean series of spaces on six levels, which created the deepest habitable basement in London and among the deepest in the world – a factor that presented a plethora of architectural, structural and engineering challenges for all involved.
As the hotel moves close to its one year anniversary – a milestone in itself considering the unpredictable landscape along with travel restrictions that the hotel opened within – Hotel Designs, in association with AXOR and Hansgrohe, caught up with Steul to understand how, as well as architecture, the hotel has reached new heights (or depths is perhaps more apt) in wellness and wellbeing.
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Main image credit: Hansgrohe
