Gatwick Private Hotel

Gatwick Private Hotel is the conversion of two empty ground floor shells to create a single-family home and studio. There were two key design drivers for the project: generate a plan that could support different modes of occupation throughout the year as well as long term modifications, and craft a design response that acknowledged and embraced the complex history of the site.

Prior to commencing, we undertook a detailed photographic survey of the internal existing building fabric to identify how remnants of this interior could be sympathetically retained and reinterpreted.

Sala Beckett by Flores and Pratts was a key precedent that we drew upon, as well as Burra Charter principles including maintaining clear distinctions between old and new. Wherever possible existing elements such as floorboards and skirtings have been retained and re-used, and elements of the existing building fabric including plaster mouldings, tiling and paint finishes are visible in almost every space.
Initially considered for redevelopment as an architectural office, its potential to house a family of five in the short-medium term, and to evolve into other more public uses led us to test multiple planning options that suggested a very wide range of possibilities. A home for a blended family, from week to week it varies from being a home for a couple, a family home for 3, 4 or sometimes 5 people in total.

The plan includes an additional space accessed through the shared lobby, designed to be used as an office, a studio for visiting relatives, Airbnb or potentially events. From the outset a masterplanning approach (more typically applied to multi-residential rather than a single apartment) considered the potential for the family home to be divided in the distant future, to create three separate residences in response to changing needs and to avoid the need to move to downsize and relocate.

The Gatwick Private Hotel has had a complex history. It began in 1937 as a luxury private hotel. It was purchased in 1972 by the the Carbone family, whose daughters, twin sisters Rose and Yvette ran it as a rooming house up until its sale to Channel 9 in 2017 and is now entirely private residential. While the current manifestation on the ground floor is a residence, it will continue to evolve well into the future into new private and public forms of occupation.

This project questions what we choose to value and explores how a sensitive integration of residual elements can create a narrative that creates a more meaningful dialogue between past, present and the future. Ongoing conversations regarding what might be revealed or preserved, and a contemporary interpretation and integration of these elements has resulted in an outcome cognisant of its past and open to new futures.