Norman Foster's curved Portland stone facade at the junction of the Strand and Aldwych is one of central London's more quietly authoritative pieces of urban architecture — a building whose elliptical corner tower and rigorously gridded fenestration have anchored this busy intersection since 2004. ME London, which took over the building in 2012 following a conversion by the Meliá Hotels group, inherited that civic confidence and pressed it into the service of a rather different ambition: a design-forward lifestyle hotel aimed at a younger, image-conscious European market. The interiors were handed to Foster + Partners collaborator and Spanish designer Jaime Hayon, whose signature oscillation between whimsy and precision runs through the public spaces. The lobby and restaurant environments visible in the images demonstrate the range he was working across — a monochrome dining room with curved white leather banquettes, polished hardwood tables, and a spectacular curved screen of stainless steel tubes that recalls a pipe organ abstracted into pure surface, set against a dramatic black-lacquered ceiling. The all-day restaurant takes a different register entirely: teal barrel chairs, rattan pendant lights, and a floor-to-ceiling tropical mural beneath the building's arched arcade windows. Guest rooms strip back to a near-clinical white — upholstered wall panels, grey carpet, and floor-to-ceiling glazing framing London roofline views — with the building's curved geometry surfacing in the tower rooms. The hotel runs to 157 rooms across ten floors.

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