Corridor carpet in Marriott house colours

Bedrooms and apartments rise 12 floors above the reception. With 279 rooms and 22 suites plus 47 apartments that share the hotel facilities with the hotel guests, this is a major development for Marriott. The designers, who recently created the Marriott prototype rooms for both the standard Marriott and their Renaissance brand, have managed to adhere to the brand guidelines, including the (to designers, infamous) house colours of red and green. Yet in their interpretation they deliver a cool modernist hotel interior that is comfortable and welcoming, with high quality of detailing and finishes throughout .

The height of the hotel, and the open aspect enjoyed by most bedrooms gives spectacular views over the enormously energy wasting offices (if you are a shareholder you should be demanding of your bank why it needs to leave all the lights on at night, wasting shareholder funds and adding to global warming problems) and apartments of the continuously growing Docklands community. With floor to ceiling windows the rooms maximise the impact of the view, and the sheers on curtain tracks enable the guest to secure privacy or to enjoy all they survey.

Each bedroom floor has the designer’s trick of a variation in the image when the lift doors open to give to the guest a visual recognition of their floor. Here the set piece of mirror and table is supplemented by differing arrangements of orchids or other items on the console – although the holes in the console top bear witness to their removal by some guests (I remember providing small arrangements of balls of roses in one hotel which were then used by guests to play soccer in the corridor after late nights in the bar!) Lighting is positioned to light the doors and variation is created by the use of table lamps on consoles along the corridor sides. Door treatment is unusual with the edge in a contrasting band of burr wood. This creates visual interest in the corridors which are kept short by the location of the lifts and which avoid the long walk affect by their curve.

rollover to see a bathroom

Podded bathrooms speed construction time and enhance security in new builds, and the system has been used here. With bathrooms manufactured in factory conditions off site better quality is assured, unless there is an attempt to cut down on costs. Many pod manufacturers bulk buy taps, tiles etc (Directory Company E.J Badekabiner, not the manufacturer in this instance, manufactures 16,000 bathrooms a year, giving scope for enormous savings through buying power). This form of manufacture is not a recent innovation so it is a little of a surprise to see that the process has not been managed well as could be expected. Whilst the bedrooms are of a very high standard of finish and comfort, and the bathroom in general matches this, there is a marked step up into the room which is usually avoided, and the price appears to have been pared down, noticeable in a flimsy shower enclosure framed in cheap plastic, out of keeping with the high quality of the rest of the building.

The new Marriott bed is far superior in my opinion to the equivalent experienced elsewhere, but the dressing with all the available pillow options must create housekeeping problems. With no less than six pillows of differing sizes on the bed the guest is spoilt for choice, but it results in many ending up on the floor. Poor housekeeper having to change 6 pillow cases every day as well as the range of sheets and over and underduvets that now grace the bed. The bed is high – great for ageing bones as getting up becomes stepping out in the morning but it must create some problems in regulalry turning the mattress. The recent focus on the bed by groups has brought a great improvement in the experience for guests but it must require some major organisational changes for housekeeping. Psychologically a guest feels almost ‘enthroned’ in a bed as generous as this and it certainly gave a very comfortable nights sleep in a hotel whose location isolated from traffic guarantees a quiet night not always possible in London hotels.