Designers Blacksheep have now completed the transformation of the entire ground floor of The Mercure Eastgate Hotel in Oxford for client Mercure Hotels , Accor's upper-mid-market hotel brand. The project - which encompassed a new 90-cover restaurant (with private dining area), bar, lobby, lounge and toilet areas - necessitated a complete redesign of the ground floor footplate to optimise key revenue-generating areas for the client and completely refresh the hotel's offer for guests.
Blacksheep also named and did all the branding and graphics work for the new restaurant The High Table, alluding to the grand dining hall traditions of the Oxford Colleges, as well as graphics work for the new bar, which takes inspiration from Oxford's literary alumni. The branding work encompassed all external and internal signage, menus, matchboxes, business cards and other stationary and marketing collateral.
The Eastgate Hotel was formerly one of 24 Macdonald Hotels, which were purchased by developers Moorfield, with the operational franchise taken up by Mercure. Mercure then took on Warwick Avenue to project manage the upgrade of this and other hotels in the group to ensure the hotels fit firmly within the Mercure brand's upper mid-market 4 star profile, which sees every hotel as unique and with its own character, but backed by the quality standards that come with an international hotel brand. Blacksheep were appointed to create the new designs for the hotel and are also actively looking at others of the newly-purchased stock. The aim for the 3*** Mercure Eastgate Hotel is for it to achieve a 4**** listing following all works.
An inn known as the Crosse Sword had been on the Eastgate site from the 17th to 18th centuries, followed by The Flying Horse inn, built around 1840. The Eastgate Hotel was first established in 1899, built by EP Warren and uniting several disparate buildings. The existing Eastgate Hotel benefited from a strong location on the corner of Oxford High Street ('The High') and Merton Street, but had only a small frontage with a typical student-type bar and restaurant and reception area behind, accessed by a side entrance. It had been made up of a series of knocked-through buildings and brought with it concomitant problems of level changes and disjointed interior architecture.
The idea for the new ground floor plan was to rationalise the spaces so that the scheme flowed easily from one space to the next, with easy and effective change from day to night-time use. The brief was to enhance the customer journey and seek to increase the dwell time of both casual and hotel guest users, as well as looking to attract more discerning local guests to use the restaurant and bar facilities more frequently.
The kitchen was to stay in its existing location and the new public spaces had to work around this. There was also the opportunity to upgrade the space in accordance with DDA regulations, including the installation of a new disabled lift. Blacksheep's key decision was to switch the spaces around so that the restaurant was located at the front of the hotel, linking in to the new bar, lounge and reception area.
Small exterior works were also carried out, including new external lighting and signage and a new menu box.
The reception area of the hotel was reconfigured to create improved focal points and circulation, removing a through-door into the former restaurant space to create a more open, lobby feel. The existing reception desk, (to the left of the main entrance, was not very user-friendly and didn't set the correct tone for the hotel and its new aspirations - remove sentence) was moved to the right of the entrance, a more pleasing symmetry was created by its position opposite a large existing sandstone fireplace. The bespoke-designed desk is in black-stained timber with a very hard-wearing gold paper with a hammered finish at the front. New floor-to-ceiling cupboards behind the desk, in dark-stained timber with mirrored insert panels covered in bronze film, are used to store all printers and associated products. A greater sense of informality is given by the lower height of the desk, now at seated height, rather than being at standard hotel reception height. A special new feature light-shade in cream runs above the whole length of the desk and a feature wall to the right of the reception uses special calligraphy wallpaper, introducing the literary association, which is expanded upon in the bar area.
An eye-catching circular seat in purple velvet in the centre of the lobby space gives it a focus, with guests able to face the fireplace or people-watch the entrance and desk area. Colours in the reception space were warmed up, using the palette of aubergine, purple and cream throughout, with a timber floor.
Blacksheep then created a new lounge and lobby area from half of the existing restaurant space, with the other half used as a dedicated bar. The boundaries between these sections can move between day and night-time usage. The ease of the transition between the spaces is underlined through the use of timber flooring throughout, from the reception right through to the bar.
Two level changes in the space were dealt with via a DDA-conforming lift and ramp, whilst the toilets were also reconfigured with new entrances.
For the lobby area, four different fabrics were used to animate the space:
- brown/tan leather
- deep purple velvet
- gold/orange and brown-striped material
- a very textured mustard flower pattern on a light brown background.
All Mercure hotels are designed and furnished with the utmost respect for the local area and draw on the strengths and character of the individual property. This is reflected in the refurbishment. The new hotel bar, for example, was inspired by Oxford's great literary history and alumni and particularly the element of fantasy, taking inspiration from the works of Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland), CS Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia), Kenneth Grahame (The Wind in the Willows) and JRR Tolkein (The Lord of the Rings) in particular, using drawings and illustrations from works by all four literary greats.
The bar has a loosely library feel, with key walls (and a folding screen) here and also in the lounge space, which has to play a role from day through to night-time, decorated in bookspine wallpaper. Blacksheep specified special lights with a fantasy element (such as antlers or birds) carved into them and coffee tables are patterned with leaves and a woodland theme. The feel behind the furniture is very much one of comfort and home-from-home.
Setting a tone that extends into the restaurant, all freestanding furniture - cupboards and credenzas for example - are black-lacquered.
The main bar is very darkly stained and is almost black with smoked mirror front panels.
To create the new restaurant, as much structure as possible was taken out of the old bar to leave a more coherent dining space. A left-over segment of space was used to create two brand new elements: a new fine dining area and a dedicated wine store, getting maximum usage out of the existing architecture.
The restaurant brief was to create a brasserie-style food offer, which had to cover the whole spectrum from breakfast buffet to morning coffees and pastries to lunches, early evening drinks and snacks and dinner. The breakfast offer needed to be light, airy and informal, with customers self-serving from a breakfast bar. Lunchtime was also to be informal, offering relaxed brasserie dining, whilst dinnertime needed to be more formal. Les Grands Vins is the Mercure brand's exclusive wine list designed to give guests a choice of impressive wines at prices they can afford. Drawing attention to the wine list in the design is a dedicated display area, where six hand-picked and very good wines are featured, reassuring customers that quality wines are on offer.
A major challenge was to cover the restaurants 'moods' and create a relaxing ambience at night. Lighting design in particular was the answer to this with low pendant lighting and the use of candles at dinner.
The restaurant is dressed in a monochromatic colour scheme, with a dining hall feel. The centre of the restaurant has white glass-topped tables, white timber chairs and a lined oak timber floor, with a surround in white riven stone. Around the perimeter are padded banquettes and upholstered chairs with black tables for more intimate dining areas and a strong definition between the two types of space. The banquettes are bespoke-designed by Blacksheep with a vinyl seat pad and a two-tone silk-effect backing with button detail, whilst the chairs are upholstered in grey.
To break up the strictness of the monochrome a little and add some informality, two dramatic fabrics were used for the blinds: one is in gold and the second in gold, black and cream. Gold is also used as a subtle highlight throughout the space, including its use on the inside of the pendant lights. Similar, smaller versions of these are also used over the bar area to give a sense of scale
Bespoke black-lacquered storage has been installed above the banquettes, which is used to display vinegar and oils during the daytime (brought onto the tables at night-time). Fresh herbs are additionally used to dress the tables in the daytime, stored on a dedicated herb wall area. The table are dressed with candles at night in white, black and amber tea light holders.
The bespoke restaurant bar, with timber flooring, is used as a buffet during the day and a dedicated dispense bar at night. Alongside the bar is a floor-to-ceiling wine store/display area, with a bespoke-designed waiter station in front. Mercure's 'Grands Vins' are stored here. The freestanding furniture is all bespoke-designed and finely-detailed - very much part of the initial design concept of classic and timeless elegance.
The walls of the restaurant feature a subtle anaglypta paper with key feature areas in a patterned black and gold paper - also used as the inspiration for the vinyl design on the floor-to-ceiling glass wall within the private dining area.
The fine dining area echoes the restaurant treatment but is more sumptuous with added artwork as well as the feature glass wall. The floor also has a black and silver rug. The table is bespoke-designed in black lacquer with eight chairs alongside. Lighting is in the form of a chandelier with small shades matching the large and small gold-lined pendant lights in the main restaurant.