Gesamt Kunst Werk

Design Systems crafts a total design package—architecture, interior design, and branding strategy—to create the unforgettable TUVE Hotel in Hong Kong.

- Patrick Kasingsing

TUVE Hotel is not for everyone.

“Our task was to design a hotel 66 people might like,” says Lam Wai Ming, design principal of Design Systems, referring to the number of rooms the boutique hotel has. “We have a competitive hospitality market here in Hong Kong. With 635 hotels in the city, it’s important we offer something different if we are to stand out. For us, it’s the ability to offer not just a quiet respite from the city, but also an emotional experience through the act of discovery and surprise.”

Context

TUVE Hotel is on Tsing Fung Street in Tin Hau, an area of Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay district uncharacteristically quiet and laid-back compared to the rest of the city. It is dotted with eateries and convenience stores, the streets shrouded by the shadows of slender residential towers.

The hotel first makes its presence known with a setback much deeper than its neighbors’. Its somber black podium is finished in a ridged pattern, the linearity broken by three openings: the entrance corridor, the rusting metal gatefaçade of the SILVER Room restaurant, and a long horizontal window on the second floor. The hotel rooms are housed in an understated, spindle-thin glazed tower rising 32 floors up.

Concept