Hotels with a positive legacy: the stories behind some of our latest projects
Ahead of the AHC conference, Rob Harris shares his outlook on the main challenges and opportunities facing hoteliers, developers and design teams
Heading to the Annual Hospitality Conference 2026 in Manchester?
Rob Harris, director in our building services engineering team, will be there too. Drop Rob a message if you’d like to meet up.
Ahead of the conference, Rob shared his outlook on the main challenges and opportunities facing hoteliers, developers and design teams:
Rob Harris said: “Hotel owners and developers continue to face a mix of wicked problems, including difficulties in acquiring sites, the ageing condition of existing stock, and the need for creative refurbishment and new revenue streams. Getting a project from start to site has become much more complex, particularly for new builds, and planning remains a real challenge.
“But there’s also reasons to be cheerful, and lots of evolving design and thinking for us to champion. For both new builds and retrofit, now is the time to look at a hotel and how it works in different ways, and we’re seeing the rise of mixed-use developments, community-focused hotels, and the integration of lifestyle elements to improve guest experience and operational viability.
“During my career, I must have worked on more than a hundred hotel environments of every single type, but they’re all connected with a common thread. It’s all about system thinking, and bringing together the right team who can engineer, design and shape in the most sensitive way, to have the greatest positive impact where we can.”
Here’s a glimpse at some of the stories behind just a few of our latest hotel projects, that blend creativity, ingenuity and system thinking to overcome market challenges:
Hotel Indigo K West, London - Refurbishing the seven-storey building with a BBC recording studio legacy, into a high-end hotel and spa. Reshaping the hotel rooms while avoiding significant changes to the structure, allowing for the construction of new food, drink and wellness facilities.
Tileyard North, Wakefield - The mixed-use regeneration of Grade II* listed Rutland Mills into a creative hub. Featuring a refurbished hotel with a new river deck, outdoor bar and balconies, all while retaining as much heritage fabric as possible, with Hawkins\Brown and wider team. With sustainable drainage for greater flood resilience and new riverside connections.
St Enoch’s Quarter, Glasgow - Transforming Glasgow’s Category A listed Custom House and adjoining land into a mixed-use hotel development on the Clyde, with Artisan Real Estate and wider design team. Featuring a 303-bed Clayton Hotel, a 164-bed Adagio Aparthotel and public spaces, while restoring a prominent heritage asset.
Custom House, London - Revitalising a Grade I listed landmark on the City riverside into a hotel. Letting the building itself take the lead to give it new life, helping to maximise the number of rooms without diminishing heritage value, with Orms and more.
Everard’s Print Works, Bristol - Celebrating Bristol’s connection to art whilst restoring a piece of local history into a 255-bed Clayton hotel, commercial space and 24 residential homes, with Artisan Real Estate and wider team. Leading the civil and structural engineering on the complex regeneration project involving heritage assets and phased interventions.
AC by Marriott, Manchester - A 172-bed, four star hotel over nine storeys in Manchester city centre. Working with SimpsonHaugh we provided civil and structural engineering services on the project, which establishes a high quality design benchmark for the area’s regeneration, creating a distinctive sense of place.
Holiday Inn Birmingham Airport NEC - Refurbishing and decarbonising key elements. Using both our structural and building services engineering expertise to understand and optimise the 1930's building with improved ventilation, thermal and acoustic performance and more efficient air conditioning, working with 3DReid for 11 Hospitality.
Clayton, St Andrews Square, Edinburgh - The refurbishment and extension of a Category A-listed office building within the Edinburgh World Heritage Site to create a 172-bed Clayton Hotel with bar, restaurant, and business suite. With a new extension designed to complement the surrounding stone context, working with Hawkins\Brown and CField Construction for Dalata Hotel Group.
