Keeping in with the Media Crowd: Media One Hotel

To stop the lobby being a place you have to go. Shah-Mulani’s stated aim was to get away from the traditional reception desk at the entrance so the lobby could work as a social space rather than a checkpoint — the hardest room in a lifestyle hotel to activate, because people use it for grazing rather than for anything in particular.

White marble already ran through the ground floor, so timber panels and cladding were introduced for warmth, with contemporary fabrics and pops of blue in the seating and wooden flooring in the outlets. Most of the lobby furniture was custom-made, and sliding barn doors turn the eclectic furniture into social but intimate meeting spaces. CaféM on the ground floor has suspended metal fixtures that give storage and display above the serving counter, and bespoke cabinetry holding plants and books on the media theme. All the shelving and timber panelling was made locally.