Nostalgia, Materiality, and Melbourne Collide Inside Hannah St Hotel.

Melbourne has a habit of doing things quietly, then blowing everyone away. Hannah St Hotel is a good example. The $150 million property slipped into Southbank late last year with minimal fanfare—and yet, from a design perspective, it’s one of Australia’s most considered hotel interiors to open in recent years.

The project is the work of David Flack and his Melbourne-based studio, Flack Studio, who describe it simply as “a career highlight.” Having spent three years crafting the 188-room hotel within the podium of the 62-storey Queensbridge Building—itself a striking triangular site drawing clear parallels with New York’s Flatiron Building—the brief was both ambitious and specific: create a hotel that feels lived-in, not stayed-in.

“Every space in the hotel is an invitation to make yourself at home,” says Flack. “Nothing in the hotel is about big spaces. It’s about small spaces that feel comfortable, lived in and intimate.”

The design language draws on French and Italian modernism of the 1920s, filtered through layers of 1930s elegance, 1950s curves, and 1980s blush tones. Joinery references Charlotte Perriand’s 1920s furniture—crafted in polished stainless steel, aged brass mesh, caramel timbers, and Carrara marble. Guest room bathrooms are deep navy, evoking the feeling of swimming in the ocean, finished with terrazzo floors. Blush pink carpets run through each of the 29 to 58 square metre rooms, lending warmth to skyline-framing picture windows. The corridors—long, richly coloured, with red-painted ceilings—channel Deco-era Tokyo. Near every single piece of furniture and FFE has been custom-designed by Flack Studio; the sole exception is a single black swivel desk chair.

The exterior, designed by architect Callum Fraser of Fraser & Partners, is equally thoughtful. Rising from a triangular block, the 10-storey hotel podium is clad in textured aerated concrete panels—274 of them, custom-precast offsite to resemble bluestone—referencing both Melbourne’s volcanic landscape and its built environment since the 1830s. Metallic tablature wraps the building in a feathering technique that picks up light differently throughout the day, functioning almost as a sundial across seasons.

The hotel’s art program reinforces the design’s depth and local intent. Justene Williams’ Mirror Sheila commands the foyer as a futuristic sculpture-cum-guardian. Jazz Money’s custom poem, These Infinite Beginnings, manifests across the building in light and sound. Works by Mia Boe, Mikala Dwyer, Marion Abraham, and others add further texture and narrative.

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[Images courtesy of Hannah St Hotel.]