HIX & Co Present: Hotel BDC // 4Corners Design x The Smithfield Cattle Club Hotel
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Marking our largest and most ambitious installation yet, HIX LDN 2024 will see Islington’s iconic Business Design Centre reimagined as a hotel by four leading hospitality design studios. Presented as a multimedia gallery within a dedicated space by set-builders Cloud and Horse, each team’s vision is centred around a deep-dive report by heritage consultants Historic Productions, and celebrates the power of history, locality, and community in hotel design.
Ahead of the big reveal on 27 November, we sat down with each studio to hear more about their proposed concept and their approach to creating a sense of place. First up is 4Corners Design, the in-house design studio of development specialists SUSD London, who have repositioned the BDC as a nexus of forward-thinking fringe experiences anchored by Islington’s legacy as a hotspot for nonconformist innovation and unorthodox lifestyles.
Here, Managing Director Harry Harris (HH) and architects Patricia Trivino Herrero (PTH) and Sandor Ambrus (SA) share the influences behind their vision for Smithfield Cattle Club Hotel.
What does a sense of place mean to you?
PTH: I think it’s about engaging with a community. A good example in London is King’s Cross, because just a few years ago it was somewhere a lot of people passed by, but what architects, designers and restauranteurs have achieved there is a place you want not just to visit, but to stay and use and connect with other people, which has created a community of its own. As either a local or a visitor, a sense of place is something that speaks to this community.
SA: It’s also about attracting people from around the world. To do that, you have to ask what makes someone want to visit that place specifically above any other. At the end of the day, it comes down to experience, because that’s how memories are made. At hotels especially, you often have such a rich backdrop against which you can deliver a really potent experience that can stay with a guest for the rest of their lives.
HH: People are a lot more transient these days, moving around the globe at a much greater rate, and so a lot of guests are really seeking out ‘a sense of place’ in response to that. To quote the line from Cheers, ‘sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name’ and it can sound a bit cheesy, but it has a lot of meaning. People say they love going to a certain hotel because they always serve them their favourite drink just the way they like, or because they make the bed in exactly the right way. This has traditionally been more of a service element, but designers and architects are getting very good at creating spaces where this kind of experience is facilitated.
What caught your eye in the Historic Productions report?
HH: The interesting thing for me was the Business Design Centre’s origins as an agricultural hall – a place for the buying and selling of cattle. It’s an extraordinary space for something like that, because these days you would probably build a big, boring industrial space and be done with it, but back then they built something that was equally capable of holding a cattle auction one week and a royal engagement the next. We also found the slightly anarchic, bohemian background to the wider area to be very interesting. At a cursory glance today, you have the Corbyn and socialist associations, but it goes back much further. You have the marches for the Tolpuddle Martyrs passing through Copenhagen Fields; Stalin had an office in Clerkenwell during his exile; and the Bolsheviks held some of their early conferences above a pub in Angel.
SA: Islington originated as a point of refuge and entertainment for incoming trade from the surrounding counties on their way to the city. The report showcased the area’s rich social tapestry, including rivalries between opposing factions on the Italian mafia, which really played a big part in terms of creating that tension between the aspirational high society and the darker underbelly.
PTH: Islington and the area around the BDC have always attracted anarchist mindsets, and there’s something about it being on the edge of the city that has made it the place to be if you wanted to revolt against the system, or discuss ideas about different ways of living. Harry mentioned some of the historic examples, but more recently you had one of the country’s first gay marriage ceremonies held in Islington, so throughout history it’s had this forward-thinking attitude and edge that we have tried to translate in our concept.
Tell us about your concept.
HH: We thought a lot about that idea of operating at the edges, and we noticed a lot of parallels between the kind of ideas that have flourished here and things like the use of natural psychedelics in modern medicine. These substances are still illegal in a lot of places, but if you look 10 or 20 years down the line then there’s every chance today’s outliers will be looked at as having been ahead of the curve. If you look at cannabis in Colorado, for example, it’s now a world centre for the treatment of epilepsy. With this in mind, we’ve reimagined the BDC as a centre of guided journeys, embracing new and natural psychedelics and traditional drugs to promote mental health, along with the discovery of decadent, elevated experiences. It imagines a future where things that are seen as subversive now are commonplace, where you can drop by for a psilocybin omelette before a therapeutic guided experience from an expert practitioner.
SA: It was mentioned in the report that Islington had one of the very first water purification centres outside of London, which itself was one of the pioneering examples of mass-produced glass, and again kind of dovetails with this idea of being at the edge of things. In the context of the installation, we’ve taken this history and tried to look at how it might inform the future – whether that’s in terms of new experiences, or as a gateway to discovering something new about yourself. In terms of the actual structure, you have the extraordinary glass dome, and then underneath are the porticos where you can imagine people coming through this ‘gateway’.
PTH: A lot of the concept promotes choice, in the sense that the space can be flexible between day and night, whilst guests can select social or more private experiences. You can visit with friends for a casual drink with experimental ingredients, or stay all day for a therapeutic treatment, but everything leads back to opening your mind and changing your mindset. It’s very flexible, which is something else we picked up from the presentation – the Business Design Centre has always been very dynamic as a building, hosting everything from cattle auctions and circuses to royal ballroom dances, and we’d like to keep some of that. Likewise, Islington is always changing, and we foresee this hotel would be a part of that.
Smithfield Cattle Club hotel will be revealed alongside three other visions on 27 & 28 November as part of an immersive gallery installation. Claim your free pass here for a front row seat.