Morley House Hotel, London EC1

Client: Shiva Hotels / ICG Longbow

JRA entered a competition to design a 12-storey hotel on the site of the vacant 1980s Morley House office building. The site is located on Holborn Viaduct in the City of London, in the vicinity of a number of historically significant buildings including Sir Christopher Wren’s Grade I listed St. Andrew’s Church.

JRA’s designs utilised a pallet of colours and materials from the surrounding buildings to integrate Morley House within the streetscape. Inside, the scheme comprised a lobby, lounge, leisure facilities, restaurant and 226 guestrooms. The designs centred the hotel on a courtyard with a diagonal void through the building to provide visual and physical connection between the surrounding thoroughfares, creating an urban living room at the edge of the streets