London-based architecture and interior design practice Universal Design Studio has unveiled its designs for the rooms at Villa Copenhagen, the new 390-key hotel housed within the Danish capital’s former Central Post Office.
Inspired by the building’s Neo-baroque style dating back to 1912, the context of the local architecture, and artworks by Danish master Vilhelm Hammershøi, the studio has designed 381 rooms across the property’s five floors. To reflect the painter’s understated, elegant use of light, Universal has developed a warm, muted colour palette using soft ochre, brick, grey-green, and copper tones throughout the rooms, creating a calming refuge that is both timeless and forward-looking.
Unique for a hotel of its size, Villa Copenhagen houses over 55 room typologies, all of which have been designed to give a sense of subtle beauty, quality and timelessness. The room types throughout the hotel vary in design, in large part due to the differing existing interior architecture. Lower floors with four-metre high ceilings showcase near floor-to-ceiling windows; meanwhile upper floors in the converted attic have been designed to maximise their charm with lime-wash wall finish and exposed timber beams, as well as roof-lights that offer far-reaching views across Copenhagen.
Universal conceived the aesthetic and fit-out for 341 standard and deluxe rooms, 40 suites and junior suites, and an eponymous, two-storey Universal Penthouse Suite. All feature a wall-length tinted mirror with a textured glass internal façade that invites natural daylight into the bathrooms, whilst reflecting from the refurbished period windows. These in-room features sit alongside painted timber panelling, oak parquet flooring, open wardrobes made of walnut, smoked glass and raw brass, and marble-clad windowsills, minibars, and credenzas.
Universal also refurbished the hotel’s grand staircases, waiting areas, and hallways throughout the hotel, purposefully linking the communal spaces to further enhance the guest’s journey throughout the building.
On the collaboration, Richard McConkey, Head of Hospitality at Universal, said: “Our aim was to create a series of rooms which respond to the historic building, whilst centring on contemporary Danish design, humanness, and craft.
“Copenhagen has a beautiful quality of light, which, alongside the feeling of quiet beauty in the work of Hammershøi, became a key reference point in our design process. We have tried to look at each room as if an individual residence, aiming to emphasise the building’s original character to create a mix of different room types, tones, bespoke pieces and relaxed quiet experiences, which contribute to a stand-out destination for conscious, quality luxury.”
www.villacopenhagen.com
www.universaldesignstudio.com
