Room Mate Giulia Hotel in Milan by Patricia Urquiola.

We’re convinced there’s either three Patricia Urquiolas, or the one-and-only woman hasn’t slept in the past few years. Either way, the amount of work the enormously talented designer pumps out is truly astonishing – from creating furniture, textiles and objects, hosting design lectures and exhibitions, to designing hotels, restaurants and even showrooms. And it’s not just ‘work’ – Patricia Urquiola is the most celebrated female creative in the interiors world. Each and every project she commits to is both resolved to the most minute detail and directional in style, form and palette, and her latest interior design project is no exception.

Room Mate Giuila is an 85-room boutique hotel in Milan that takes abstract design cues from the cultural and aesthetic history of the city. The lobby features flooring made with the same pink marble used in the Duomo Cathedral around the corner, as well as curved walls made with terracotta bricks; a tribute the humble material used extensively throughout northern Italy. The geometric rigour of the city inspired the grid-like patterns used in both the design elements and materiality in the hotel. We love the check fabrics used in the rooms, which have a 50s Bauhaus-come-Classical Italianate aesthetic. Urquiola created the smoking hot palette from tones found around the new and old parts of the city, extensively using terracotta, peach, dusty blue, moss green, neon pink and mustard in the design.

Strong black accents are used to frame design elements and create bold contrasts in line with Milan’s graphic history. This is particularly effective in the bathroom tapware and furniture selections in the common spaces. Industrial elements are introduced as a nod to Milan’s manufacturing history, seen in the use of industrial wire glass and steel frames. The beauty of the entire hotel lies in its unexpected surprises – artworks hung way above eye level, design classics from Cassina upholstered in new directional tones and layer upon layer of abstract geometric forms. And it’s open just in time for Salone del Mobile. Perfecto!