ABSTRACT
Articulating nested scales, the design diversity of Town Hall Hotel in East London reveals a specific inverted bottom-up design process whereby a layered and non-compositional approach relies on local and particular needs to define the textured conversion of the listed building into a luxury hotel, conference centre and fine dining restaurant and bar. Lodged at various scales, coordinated design strategies offer a seemingly paradoxical differentiation and coherence required to insert several new functions within a physically and stylistically heterogeneous structure. The simultaneous consideration of different scales from the outset illustrates how the preconception of hierarchy can be inverted while maintaining a coherent whole. The reinvented building stands as a distinctively new entity where advanced design, modelling and manufacturing techniques reinvigorate a local icon in one of London's emerging cultural clusters.
