Situated in the suburban outskirts of Melbourne’s west, Holiday Inn, designed by Studio Tate unveils an approachable and design-minded tone for the well-established accommodation brand—elevating and widening the hotel’s relevance to contemporary Australian and international guests.

Tasked with executing the first of Holiday Inn’s next-generation design hotels, Studio Tate sought to redefine the hotel experience as a vibrant social destination with design at its core. “While the Holiday Inn design philosophy for these new-look hotels informed the overall design, our cross-sector experience and our rigorous understanding of hotel operations and guests’ desires enabled us to work with the brand’s vision to reimagine the visitor journey,” says Alex Hopkins, Design Director of Studio Tate.

Drawing on the principles of the Memphis Design Movement, itself a rebellion against the status quo, the 150-room hotel is awash with vivid hues, eye-catching textures and striking geometries. While the design language varies between guest rooms, dining, bar and lounge areas, conference rooms and events spaces, each interior is linked through subtle green accents—a nod to Holiday Inn’s quintessential brand colour.

Underscoring the importance of the arrival experience, the hotel lobby, located on the 8th floor, offers sweeping views towards Melbourne’s city skyline. From here a series of elemental concierge points in stainless steel and cloudy natural stone are shrouded by a dramatic green velvet curtain, crafting a warm, welcoming and playful tone as a precursor to the greater hotel proposition.

Grounded by terracotta carpets, the lobby and lounge’s curvaceous pastel furnishings create an inviting, domestic-inspired setting for leisurely conversation and repose. Intelligently concealed tech points provide amenity for visitors to work, play, gather and dwell, in an uplifting environment bathed in natural light.

The lounge areas intuitively lead to a corner bar offering wide-ranging city views. Echoing the sophistication of Melbourne’s much loved inner-city venues, the bar is sensitively detailed in walnut timber, rich stone and lustrous metal, and softened by cascading greenery. The adjacent dining area is punctuated with a cobalt blue tiled bench and surrounded by a variety of cafe-style seating arrangements.

Situated on floors 8–11, the guest rooms feature a soft, tonal palette offset by a custom checkered bedhead of energetic green tones. Denim blue feature walls, deep ink and emerald-toned joinery, terrazzo tiling and pastel upholstery accents extend the hotel narrative to every touchpoint, enriching the guest experience down to the finest detail.

[Images courtesy of Studio Tate. Photography by Peter Clarke.]