Scarlet Hotel | Harrison Sutton Partnership

The brief was specific: create a unique and sustainable building that merges with and enhances the local environment. The result is stunning: a cliff-top hotel whose spaces, lines, and spectacular views have the power to both impress and soothe. To achieve this effect, the architects at Harrison Sutton Partnership together with the Bauwerk building team made clever use of the local topography. Their building envelope directly abuts the coastal landscape, with the cliff-top terrain wrapping up against and over the lower bedrooms via a green roof that links the natural-fronting ground level to the sea thrift roof beyond. In a rejection of the traditional long-corridor hotel plan, the architects clustered bedrooms together in small groups connected by short spaces, some curved in plan. The result is an unusually cosy, familial atmosphere that permeates the property, a welcome change from the über-sleekness of more traditional luxury hotels. The rooms themselves feature many different types of space, from intimate garden to shell-like viewing pod to wrap-around terrace. Their communal centrepiece, however, is the dramatic view over the cliff towards the ocean beyond. The Scarlet team believes that a building relying so heavily on the natural landscape for its power has a responsibility to treat that landscape with respect and care. Accordingly, the entire hotel structure was built in keeping with eco-friendly principles and is maintained via an eclectic mix of sustainable energy sources that include grey water harvesting, rain water harvesting, solar water heating, insulation, biomass boiler, and ventilation heat exchange. An all-natural pool and sea thrift roof help keep the ecological footprint at a minimum, and widespread use of recyclable and recycled materials reflects the team’s down-to-the-last-detail efforts to protect and honour the unique Cornish environment in which their hotel stands.