Formerly a rag trade warehouse built in 1938, it was bought over by Denton Corker Marshall architects in 1989, who converted the building into a boutique hotel. Construction phase 1 started out from its basement from May 1989 until October 1990. The bistro bar was located in the basement, opened after phase 1 to December 1991, and was temporary closed down for phase 2 construction, which started on January 1992. The hotel officially opened in November 1992. In 2013, the hotel was bought by three new owners, Dion Chandler, Ozzie Kheir and Simon Ongorato, and they hired design studio Hachem to redesign the hotel's interior and image.
Description
Situated within the former rag trade building on Flinders Lane, within a dense area of Melbourne's CBD, the original 1930s building is a concrete framed structure, free of columns with beams spanning 3.8 metre centres from wall to wall piers. It was originally designed as a street facade building, with the lane facade rendered in cement with openable steel framed windows to provide lighting from the side. The Flinders Lane facade was painted and rendered, with horizontal full-width strip windows surrounded by projecting concrete heads and sills. The semi-basement level and ground floor were clad with ceramic tiles. In 1989 DCM Architects began refurbishing the building into the small boutique hotel, retaining much of these original design elements and adding three new levels to the roof of the existing 8 floors. The Adelphi Hotel stands eleven storeys high with 3.2 metres floor to floor, 8 metres wide and 48 metres deep. Adelphi consists of the half basement bar and cafe. The ground floor half a level up from the street has the hotel reception, lounge, bar and restaurant. There are 34 hotel rooms from levels 3 to 8, with levels 3 to 6 having six rooms per floor. These rooms range from 32sqm to 37sqm and are connected via a single gallery corridor, with the front two rooms being larger to allow interconnection to create a suite. Levels 7 and 8 have five rooms per floor and a rooftop bar and restaurant area known as the Club Bar in the top three levels. Unlike conventional hotel swimming pools, DCM designed the pool in the form of a shipping container, cantilevering one metre over the front facade on Flinders Lane with a glass bottom. to Australian architecture, giving a sense of absurdness, exaggerating common architecture principles to an extreme degree. DCM's intentions were to keep the original 1938 building intact and to take a careful and considered approach to adding and implementing new features. They implemented such elements as stainless steel, aluminium, translucent glass, timber veneered panels and coloured planar surfaces. Coloured panels in blues, greens, yellows, oranges and reds were overlaid on the natural cement grey render tones.
Key influences and design approach
All furniture and rugs were bespoke designed specifically for the hotel by the architects themselves, who wanted everything within the hotel to be Australian-designed and made. This is considered to be a complete opposite and contrasting design compared to the general design of International hotels where new innovation and disruptive design is inhibited.
Awards
1993 - RAIA National President's Award 1993 - Winner of Commercial Alterations & Extensions, RAIA Award 1993 - RAIA Award
