Weekly digest: Exclusive meet, Sin city design & an L.A. debut

730 565 Hamish Kilburn
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Weekly digest: Exclusive meet, Sin city design & an L.A. debut

Hello and welcome to the weekly digest, with me editor Hamish Kilburn at the helm. In this round-up of stories from the last few days, we enter inside Virgin Hotels’ latest property in Las Vegas, take a deeper look at designer Tara Bernerd’s latest unveil and even find time (and the space) to introduce you to a brand-new architecture studio. Enjoy…

Can you believe it, I am writing this week’s digest while balancing my laptop on top of a vessel while punting – and why not? In order to feel truly creative, I need to get outside my comfort zones – and my pyjamas past 07:00 now that life is getting back on track – in order to experience new things. This week, that means I’m rolling up my sleeves in between reviewing a new hotel in Cambridge in order to ‘punt’ my way through a city tour (and this round-up).

So, without further a due, allow me to show to you the main sights of Hotel Designs this week.

FEATURE // Inside Virgin Hotels, Las Vegas

Image caption: The bar inside the Commons Club. | Image credit: Nikolas Koenig

And like all good experiences, we start our tour in Vegas (yee haar). Sin City has a new neighbour, and it comes in the form of a red-laced, rather swanky looking hotel. Leading New York-based hospitality design studio Rockwell Group has unveiled new images of its designs of the public areas inside Virgin Hotels’ new property in Las Vegas – and it’s everything and more we were expecting it to be…

Read more.

Bed trends: A post-pandemic insight into future guestrooms

Port Lympne Hotel & Reserve

Nap time! To celebrate our ‘beds’ feature for August, we ask Richard Naylor, Group Sustainable Development Director at Hypnos Contract Beds, to share his expertise on design and materials trends and offers insights into how hotel design could adapt as we begin to welcome guests back…

Read more. 

EXCLUSIVE: Meet the founders of Translation Architecture

Nicholas De Klerk (a former Director at Aukett Swanke) and Sze Wei Lee (a former Associate at Aukett Swanke) have teamed up to launch a new design and architecture studio. Based in London, Translation Architecture is on a mission to translate innovate ideas into extraordinary spaces on tomorrow’s hospitality scene. Hotel Designs exclusively speaks to the two founders to establish more…

Read more. 

A Tara Bernerd project: Thompson Hollywood makes its debut in Los Angeles

Image credit: Hyatt Hotels

Our tour leads us to Hollywood! The 190-key Thompson Hollywood, in the heart of Los Angeles, expands the brand’s west coast footprint. With interior design by British studio, Tara Bernerd & Partners, the hotel’s effortless style is something special. Let’s take a peek inside…

Read more.

It’s ‘show time’: Ruby Hotels arrives in Cologne, Germany

Image credit: Ruby Hotels

This week’s journey ends in style in Cologne. Ruby Hotels, which shelters the well-known ‘lean luxury’ hospitality concept, has opened a 186-key hotel in the city.“Ruby goes Late-Night” is now the motto at Ruby Ella – and becomes the brand’s 11th hotel property…

And that’s enough fun for one week – before my laptop falls into the River Cam…

Since you’re here…

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Hamish Kilburn / 13.08.2021

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