lift lobbies are identical on each floor. Colorful carpets and strong lighting give them a bright cheerful feel

The color scheme carried throughout the hotel is dark, with strong reddish brown (mahogany color?) Wallcoverings, charcoal carpets and mahogany stained furniture that is framed with black metalwork. Mirrors also echo the industrial theme being attached to the wall with visually strong chunky bolts rather than discreet fixings. With metal doors and aluminum frames the industrial theme is quite strong, and whilst very masculine it succeeds in being warm and enveloping, quite welcoming, almost womblike in feel. It has enough sharp accents with bright red cushions on the chairs for example, and a rich blue quilted bedcover to set against the brown of the walls, to avoid being gloomy or dull.

mouseover to see the floor plan of a full floor showing lift location and bedroom layout cleverly used to create double doubles as spacious as the standard double industrial details carry through to the use of bolts to hold mirrors in place, echoing the imagery of older buildings on W 33rd St (below)

The masculine theme continues in the setup to the bedrooms. There is no dressing table – the desk being just that – a desk. No vanity mirror, nowhere in either bathroom or bedroom for toiletries or make up. In some ways the design works for guests in their youth or middle age, but doesn’t work as well for older folk or those who use make-up. In part this is because the lighting, whilst dramatic is also too understated (a common problem with US hotels another designer told me). All the lights are individually operated with switches on the fittings, other than in the bathroom. This means climbing out of bed if a switch is left on by the room door, and it also means that to achieve a reasonable overall light level in the bedroom all the lights have to be individually turned on. Even then there is not enough light to see to operate the bedroom safe clearly if you have less than perfect vision, as is unfortunately the case with many of us over 40's...

The low lighting levels and strong colors do make for a sense of drama and theatre in the bedrooms that is so missing in many minimalist interiors. The rooms have warmth to them that could be destroyed with the wrong kind of lighting. Task lighting is ample for the tasks the designer envisaged, it is the lack of the ability to create a high level of general lighting when needed that is a problem, as well as how the switching works.