HBA transforms The Adria in London
Hirsch Bedner Associates (HBA) has redesigned The Adria, marking the first refurb of the South Kensington townhouse hotel in over a decade. Each of the 24 guestrooms and suites along with nine public spaces have been restored, marrying contemporary design with the elegance and intimacy of a 19th century residence.
“The spaces have all been carefully designed and furnished with a loving nod to the building’s English heritage,” says Owais Mostefaoui, Senior Project Designer on the project. As such, the team has remained sympathetic to the building’s original Victorian proportions while injecting a modern vernacular through custom lighting, repurposing existing furniture and adding character and detail to enhance the experience.
HBA’s London team took advantage of the naturally high ceilings and expansive space to bring in as much light as possible, demonstrating a complete departure from the previous design, while retaining a traditional colour palette using shades of paint in the traditional English heritage tones. Much of the existing interior architecture was kept, retaining the building’s character and period features, including detailed cornicing, black and white marble in the hallways and the ornamental cast iron balustrade leading up to the guest rooms. HBA also took a sustainable approach to design by only refreshing many of the existing pieces of furniture. This was managed by reupholstering and adding details, refinishing and revisiting the body shapes to align the design language with the new interiors. Any additional pieces were custom-built for the space.
Matteo Pace, Associate at HBA, comments: “Through carefully curated pieces of custom lighting and reinventing the vision of the existing furniture pieces, adding character through soft upholstery whilst focusing on the refinement of crafted details, the interior spaces themselves could be reinvented.”
Each room of The Adria elegantly flows into the next – encouraging guests to make themselves at home: from the lounge, which can be used as an intimate events space or simply as respite for an evening cocktail or quietly reading a book, to an elegant games room, pantry and an airy conservatory. For the pantry, HBA repurposed a space that was previously a private dining room, and created a communal hotel pantry with an honesty bar. The welcoming space has a full-height antique mirrored wall that reflects the rooms intimacy, along with intricately woven, two-tone textured wallcovering in calming hues reflective of the English countryside. Here, bespoke joinery and cantilevered shelving – another thoughtful touch by HBA – echo the Victorian veranda railings – known as ‘corner lace’ – found across England’s Victorian properties.
The hotel’s 24 rooms meanwhile have been named after typical British characters or objects – like Umbrella, Victoria, and Zebra in reference to the British invention of the zebra crossing – and are designed to be a calm, inviting space for both short-stay and long-stay guests. Each features a bespoke British-designed headboard, specially commissioned artworks to match their names, and wallpaper sourced from designer Philip Jeffries.
Erica Pritchard, Senior Associate at HBA London, adds: “We capitalised on the building’s graceful Victorian proportions, layering a combination of tactile fabrics and timeless finishes to retain the hotel’s heritage.”
