Aloft London Excel, London

Project Description

Construction of the first Aloft Excel brand hotel within the UK delivering a 252-bedroom hotel including 12 suites, with a total 167,000 sq ft for the entire building. The Aloft hotel comprises a self-service food pantry, the ‘buzzing’ xyz bar, restaurant, lounge, a full range of modern leisure spa facilities, business centre and meeting rooms. Works also included 35,000 sq ft hard landscaping & 16,000 sq ft soft landscaping.

The hotel follows a ‘serpentine’ plan with a convex central spine flanked by two concave wings. Its exterior has been clad in thousands of highly reflective stainless-steel shingles to create a shimmer-type effect and to change colour to reflect the surroundings throughout the day.

The building’s ‘serpentine’ layering reduces internal corridor lengths and brings natural daylight into the central lift-core lobby whilst addressing the site restrictions generated by complex service infrastructure surrounding the exhibition centre. The form also enables the variety of room sizes demanded by the client’s brief to be elegantly accommodated. The treatment of the internal spaces continues the linear, multi-coloured motif of the external design. Innovative finishes and bespoke coloured light panels, reminiscent of the façade treatment, decorate the guestroom corridors, creating cohesion between the internal and external spaces.