MYSTILO

In 2001 trendy boutique hotels were in its infancy in Hong Kong. Frequent hotel users were looking for more unique experiences and personalised services than what the traditional hotels offered.

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The Wincome Group of Companies was in the business of leasing office properties but now wanted to venture into the boutique hotel market. They had just purchased a prominent well located office building in Central and they wanted to convert it into their very first service apartment/ boutique hotel. Their design brief  was very clear from the beginning. They wanted a unique, modern  hotel that will provide more personalised services. They also wanted to promote the Chinese culture and at the same time consciously develop a distinguishable brand that  can flourish  when they expand their hotel business  in the future. There was a growing interest in all things Chinese at that time as China had just recently opened up to the world. The brand Shanghai Tang was also making waves world wide with its modern take on Chinese fashion.

Part of the design brief was to make use of Chinese antiques in the decoration of the hotel. My client used to own several Chinese antique shops, so they had a lot of beautiful idle furniture & accessory pieces in stock waiting to be showcased .  It was very exciting for me to sift thru their warehouse as it gave me a lot of design inspirations. 

With this brief, I proposed the concept that the hotel should be like a "Modern Chinese Art Gallery, where  guests can enjoy modern comforts & amenities while being  visually  immersed in beautiful authentic Chinese Art & Antiques.

This concept won me the bid to be their lead designer under my own Hong Kong company Estilo Design Ltd. 

The new building was located at 88 Des Vouex Road, Central, which led to the name Central 88 .  8 was an extremely lucky number in the Chinese culture. 88 would be the hotel brand.

I had to do a lot of tedious replanning of the existing office building to adapt it to the hotel's requirements. We had to plan around very unique situations for almost every floor. Fung Shui was also an important factor to be considered in the planning & design. Hong Kong is well known for employing Fung Shui in their designs.

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In Nov 2002, Hong Kong was hit by the SARS epidemic. A lot of your normal everyday concepts in hotel design & planning were instantly negated because of the big change in mindset of  people in terms of healthier material choices. For example, wall to wall carpets in guest rooms were out of the question  for  sanitary reasons. Materials specified had to withstand constant disinfection.

I also had to design all the loose & built in furniture  in line with the new concept. Choosing accessories, and artwork was also part of my job. I was also involved partly in the project management to make sure construction was in line with the agreed design.

The hotel opened in 2003 and was very well received.