Ham Yard Hotel

Selected by

Kit Kemp, Founder and Creative Director, Firmdale Hotels

Kit is the creative force behind Firmdale Hotels. The first Hotel was the Dorset Square, opened in 1985, and the company now has ten hotels, eight in London and two in New York. Kit and her husband Tim, co-founder of Firmdale are known for breathing life into dilapidated areas, transforming overlooked properties such as warehouses and car parks into successful luxury hotels. They have also broken new ground with new-build hotels such as Ham Yard in London and the Soho Hotel in New York. Kit Kemp is also a successful textiles, fragrance and homewares designer, author of several books and a champion of British art, craft and sculpture. Her website Kit Kemp’s Design Thread (www.kitkemp.com) showcases her world of colour and design. The Kit Kemp Design Studio explores colourful and detailed storytelling which celebrates craft and captures the imagination.
Location

1 Ham Yard, London W1D 7DT
Contact

0844 815 0815
www.firmdalehotels.com
Architecture

Architects: Woods Bagot. 2014

Because Ham Yard stands within a historic neighborhood, the scale had to be sympathetic to its local heritage. To fit in with the surrounding architecture, which is typically vertical, buildings were arranged as a collection of smaller buildings to break down the building mass. Standing at five storeys, its elevation blends in with the district’s skyline. Its façades also line up with the immediate neighbour’s cornice lines.
Different types of materials were fashioned in a contemporary yet refined arrangement. Protruding glass frames set for both the courtyard and Denman Street-facing façades are reused to allude to the warehouses’ typology of the neighborhood. The use of stone along the Denman Street-facing exterior also helps to blend in the construction, which frames each window opening and infill panels.
The ‘U’ shaped building was designed with ethical and sustainable principles at its core. A central courtyard and walkway was created to home five fully grown 30ft oak trees. The trees were sourced and rehomed to be placed around a specifically commissioned contemporary sculpture by Sir Tony Cragg. The majestic trees add greenery and ecological benefits to an otherwise dense urban area. Sensitive to climate-proof construction, the building has a living green roof which saves energy and encourages biodiversity in the city whilst creating a natural habitat for flora and fauna.
The fourth floor of the hotel was built to home a large, leafy rooftop vegetable garden with views over the Soho skyline. The garden blooms all year round with seasonal vegetables and flowers. Placed to the rear of the garden are beehives that help to support local ecosystems, whilst bee friendly plants, bird, bat and owl boxes have also been established.
The building has been awarded the BREEAM Excellent rating, which assesses the sustainability and environmental performance of buildings. Ham Yard development exceeds the standards by more than 40%, using CHP units and solar panels to generate electricity and insulated glazing to aide with thermal efficiency.
Interesting facts

The Croc Bowling alley is an original 1950’s bowling alley, imported from Texas, with backlit bowling balls, vintage bowling shoes and bowling pin lamps. Ham Yard is named after The Ham, an inn from the early 1700’s.
Resources

Firmdale Hotels. Woods Bagot

The Tony Clegg bronze sculpture in the courtyard of the Ham Yard hotel © Simon Brown photography for Firmdale Hotels

“A hotel’s design is a living thing, in a way. And with interiors, it’s transitory and subject to passion.”
Kit Kemp

Storytelling is at the heart of everything I do, how I dress, how I design, how I think when I’m working with a craftsman or configuring new spaces.

The loom installation in the lobby at Ham Yard. © Simon Brown photography for Firmdale Hotels

Whenever I walk into a room I go straight to the windows and look out. Building is a messy business and by the time workmen have finished a garden or outside space can be decimated. The first thing we did after buying the site of Ham Yard and Denman Place development was to purchase five 30ft oak trees to add immediate greenery to this previously neglected part of Soho.

The fourth floor garden terrace thrives with a mix of wild flowers, bees, birds, a herb and kitchen garden and an old French fountain. The sections are partitioned by wooden sleepers.
The loom is my ultimate inspiration and the starting point for a lot of my work. After much searching we found an ex Chelsea College of Art graduate Hermione Skye O’Hea to make the loom installation that we teamed with a Conrad Shawcross artwork and hung above the reception desk at the hotel.

Beehives on the Ham Yard roof terrace ©Simon Brown photography for Firmdale Hotels

I love to work with artisans and finding new people is so exciting, and the great thing is that age is utterly irrelevant. I like to break rules. I believe that every room should hold surprises that delight both the eye and the mind. I like mixing up periods, finding colours that work together, exploring new ideas, taking things that on their own are ordinary, but by mixing them up with something else come in to their own.

We wanted to make a feature of the courtyard so we commissioned Tony Cragg to create a contemporary bronze sculpture which stands around 12 foot tall – a stunning and complex piece that reflects the changing light and enhances the outside terrace.

Ham Yard and the Denman Place development gave me the opportunity to start from scratch, and create not only a hotel but an urban village complete with residential apartments, a subterranean car park, independent retail shops and an airy restaurant and bar with outdoor dining and drinking. We created a building that fitted in with my philosophy of sustainability and at the same time delighted both the eye and the mind. A green space in the heart of Soho.

“A hotel’s design is a living thing, in a way. And with interiors, it’s transitory and subject to passion.”

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