For The Principal York, we created a scheme designed to breathe life back into every artery, giving a nod to tradition, whilst creating a light, welcoming and contemporary environment in the form of a modern and softer country house interior.

Our team was asked to reinstate the hotel’s essential character to help position it as a great destination to spend time in, as well as being a great place for visitors to stay in, located right alongside York railway station.

The programme that was devised for the guest rooms involved working on each wing of the hotel in isolation, focusing on 2-3 floors at a time. Of the 164 guest rooms in the hotel, the design scheme had to be applied to each room individually in order to provide the best iteration of the design for the specific space. To account for this, we optimised the design intent across the different room spaces whilst also minimising the number of variants and therefore production time and disruption to the operation of the hotel.

The Principal York had a double victory at the 2016 Visit York Tourism awards, winning gold for Hotel of the Year and Conference Venue of the Year, and also won gold at the 2016 London Design Awards for Hospitality Interior Design