The Qbic Hotel in London brings a whole new approach to hotel design. The concept, which began in Amsterdam, has engineered a really original and inventive way of creating chic boutique hotels on a budget.
Located in a trendy area near Brick Lane, the Qbic concept is, in essence, to take out all the unnecessary things you find in hotel rooms (for instance, desks and cupboards – used only 12-15% of the time in other hotels) and design simple ‘Cubi rooms‘. A cubi is a sort of pod design which incorporates the bed and shower into one simple unit in a stylish way. The rooms are quite basic – the lowest priced don’t even have windows – but they function well and look good too. The furniture and decor are modern, funky and very cool.
The hotel has a bit of a free living, hipstery vibe which fits well for a budget hotel in this area. For instance, they promote local small businesses and produce and promise surprises like “breakfast in the park across the street, touring the city on one of our cool recycled bikes or morning coffee courtesy of the best barista in the hood”. It comes across as fun, if maybe occasionally in a little bit of a forced ‘carpe diem’ manner.
The disabled access is also apparently good. They have wheelchair accessible rooms in all of their price brackets and there a lifts to all floors. They also have a disabled toilet on the ground floor. All in all, it sounds rather good.
We give Qbic London a provisional 2.5 BBS Ticks.
