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Business rooms have access to a business lounge which was recommended as the best place in the hotel to watch the sunset over London, a recommendation that was followed and enjoyed. With the views added to the free coffee, newspapers and evening nibbles this seems to justify the extra charges, not always the case with business rooms. The room is at the end of the arc of the front of the building and actually comes to a point internally and externally where the arc meets the straight rear wall. The views from within these two glass walls are spectacular through some 200º and while the window treatments in the bedrooms at this end of the building include the predictable sheers, in the business lounge they are left with the views uninterrupted.
Bedrooms are provided with a large desk for working on, but there is also a separate business centre in the lower ground floor with a spectacular carpet in its entrance lobby. The business centre has the usual clutch of business machines available for use and is staffed. However working in the bedroom presented no problems, only the presence of an armoire striking a slightly unusual note as most four and five star hotels of this quality built since 2004 have been liberated from this awkward piece of furniture by the use of flat screen TV’s.
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The suites have a separate lounge and differ from the apartments only in that the apartments have a generously sized kitchenette in a tiled area at one end of the lounge. Suites are at the ends of the corridors and maximise the views (see the panoramas for suite interiors), with the curved end of the bulding providing generous lounge spaces.
Richmond Design is one of the oldest established interior design practices in the UK. Under its founder, Bob Lush, it grew to be Europe’s largest interior practice with an office in Dallas and another in Malaysia. The London office at one stage had over a hundred designers and several of the senior assistants to Bob Lush became practice leaders in their own right and are now respected senior practitioners in the British Industry.
The dramatic economic shocks on the UK economy as a result of the continuing political mismanagement of the economy caused a collapse of the interiors industry in the 1990’s which Richmond was not spared, but a core expertise remained and the Marriott Docklands shows that the company has lost none of its old skills.
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