Can Hotel Developers Revive London’s ‘Dead’ Buildings?
06.10.2025
Written by Ben Holmes
Associate Director
From workplace to welcome mat
London faces a persistent undersupply of hotel rooms, particularly in prime locations.
Rising vacancy rates in older office buildings also reflect a fundamental mismatch. They can no longer compete in the commercial market, yet they remain structurally sound and centrally located. Where obsolete office stock fails as contemporary workspace — often due to low floor-to-ceiling heights, unworkable structural grids or deep floor plates — it can excel for hospitality use.
There's another advantage. Offices are typically engineered with much greater loading capacities than hotels require. This structural redundancy creates opportunities to add massing, making buildings more commercially viable whilst working within existing frameworks.
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From The OWO to the Ned, adaptive reuse forces design innovation that can lead to the most memorable hospitality spaces.
Making economic sense
Reusing existing buildings isn't just environmentally sustainable, it's commercially strategic. Adaptive reuse projects often reduce capital expenditure, speed up project programmes, and result in buildings with character, which is increasingly valuable in a global market hungry for unique guest experiences.
Across the hotel industry, we're seeing a mindset shift: carbon is now both constraint and currency. Developers who understand this are looking beyond the perceived limitations of legacy assets and seeing them as opportunities to lead.
Constraints breed creativity
Buildings can last centuries, whilst function and purpose evolve. These structures still hold immense material, carbon and cultural value. The question isn't whether we can afford to reuse them; it's whether we can afford not to.
From The OWO to the Ned, we have found that adaptive reuse forces the kind of design innovation that can deliver the most memorable hospitality spaces.
Hospitable transformations
New London House
Our collaboration with Whitbread at New London House demonstrates this transformation in practice.
This 1960s office block is set to become a thriving Premier Inn, saving substantial embodied carbon whilst creating a unique, well-located hotel that benefited from reduced construction costs and accelerated delivery timelines.
The OWO
Consider the Old War Office in Whitehall. Once the nerve centre of Britain's military operations, this Grade II* listed building now houses Raffles London at The OWO. Through careful rooftop extensions and four new basement levels, we've shown how heritage constraints can guide rather than limit transformation.
The Ned presented its own set of constraints and challenges. The former Midland Bank building, with its imposing banking hall and heritage fabric, required careful navigation of structural limitations and heritage requirements.
Yet by integrating a new 12-storey core and installing a rooftop swimming pool, all whilst respecting the Northern Line below, it became a 250-room luxury hotel and members' club that celebrates rather than conceals its banking heritage.