Market Street Hotel, Edinburgh

A 98 bedroom boutique hotel with a rooftop lounge and terrace set within the heart of the Edinburgh World Heritage Site.

Architects’ Journal Future Project Award – Commendation

Date

2015

Client

EDI Ltd

Value

£15m

jmarchitects were required to provide a design solution for this compact urban site which resolved numerous technical and contextual challenges including: the dramatic topography of the site; existing escape routes and services; enhancement of adjoining public spaces; mitigation of road noise; gaining full advantage of the superb views from the site and integrating sensitively into the Old Town roofscape whilst protecting the historic Edinburgh skyline.

Our design utilises the materials, proportions and geometries of its context in a contemporary proposal which we believe is respectful of the historic city whilst unapologetically of its own time and culture. The 8 storey hotel features 98 individual bedrooms in a large variety of configurations and with many different outlooks to the city offering a highly individual guest experience to each visitor.

A folded roofscape of dark whinstone gives shelter to the top floor ‘executive lounge’, a facility open to all guests which is housed within the hotel’s carefully sculpted attic storey. The lounge and associated external roof terraces enjoy panoramic views across the Waverley Valley to the New Town. The north and west elevations of the hotel will be clad with the traditional materials of sandstone and whinstone with the courtyard elevation to the south adopting white brick; as is common in the old town, to bring light down into the landscaped courtyard gardens below.

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The Challenge

The patterns of place and architecture within Edinburgh’s Old Town have been determined by many different factors throughout the life of the city, which have, in turn, generated an enormously complex urban condition.

The Solution

In understanding the historic patterns and processes of the Old Town, we have created a site specific response which celebrates the unique qualities of the City.