Premier Inn has announced that it is building the UK’s first hotel with floating bedrooms.The hotel, in London’s entertainment heart at number 1 Leicester Square, will feature 84 bedrooms which ‘float’ on thick engineered neoprene pads so that noise from the Square and a nightclub below does not disturb guests. The innovative bedroom design has been created by an expert team of acoustic engineers, architects and construction specialists.
Each room will be formed from an independent box with no contact with the neighbouring rooms or hallway. Acoustic linings to the walls and ceilings will provide sound insulation between bedrooms; building services are isolated; and windows will have quadruple glazing.
Premier Inn has spent six months perfecting the design to ensure it meets the standards set by the company’s ‘Good Night Guarantee’. Two trial bedrooms – one with a timber frame and a second with a metal frame – have been built at the site and studies have been undertaken to establish their performance.
As part of the tests, the Premier Inn team weighed the whole bedroom to ensure the optimum compression of the isolation pads – including everything used in the construction, from the 5,000 nails to the bathroom tile adhesive.
The results from the two trial bedrooms indicate that noise levels will be significantly better than the standards recommended by the World Health Organisation, which are generally adopted as the industry standard. Premier Inn has selected the metal frame design as this represents the most effective construction solution.
Patrick Dempsey, Whitbread Managing Director, said: “Our floating bedroom is a major innovation in hotel design and means we can now bring Premier Inn to fantastic locations such as Leicester Square and to other sites where outside noise could be an issue. The success of the floating bedroom design is great news for all of our guests. It means we can be confident about guaranteeing a good night’s sleep even in the heart of one of the world’s liveliest and most celebrated entertainment centres.”
Construction work is expected to start later this month and the hotel is scheduled to open in February 2012.
Premier Inn is the UK’s biggest budget hotel chain within the M25 with 6,066 rooms and 50 hotels.
Premier Inn offers all guests the unique ’Good Night Guarantee’ – which means if you are not 100% satisfied with your stay you will get a full refund.
