The 269 guestrooms and the new Club Lounge recently re-designed by MKV Design at the Sheraton Grand Hotel and Spa Edinburgh, raise the standards hotel guests can expect in Edinburgh. The refurbished rooms are a bold departure from their predecessors in their contemporary intermingling of the modern and classical with chic cosmopolitan Scottish touchesIn a refurbishment, the challenge for the designers was to create guestrooms that would meet today’s expectations of a spacious luxury hotel bedroom in areas that were typically between 26-30 sq metres in area. Requirements at this level now dictate bathtub, shower as well as vanity unit, along with a separate toilet area. This meant that there was no alternative other than to increase the bathroom size within the overall footprint. The resulting design is a masterpiece of illusion using mirror, semi-opaque and transparent glass, hard and soft finishes and lighting to achieve a sense of space, even though the bedrooms are a little smaller than before in order to accommodate the new bathrooms.
The bathrooms are glass cubes inside which chocolate brown stone partition walls and floors achieve quality and simplicity while mood lighting and the option of music from the room’s media hub turn a small space into a luxury experience. The bedroom area is framed by a walnut-clad wall to match the floor, and the wall behind the bed is entirely mirror-clad instantly making the room appear larger than it actually is. The designers also had to bear in mind the diverse guest profile of the Sheraton Edinburgh, which is equally popular with business people and leisure travellers. Mood lighting in the bedrooms offers numerous settings to suit this diversity of guests through day and evening. The main elements in the rooms are classic and unobtrusive with the occasional splash of vivid colour. In the Castle View rooms, the design serves as a perfect frame for the iconic sight of the Scottish fortress in the near distance.
