Molonglo

Nishi is a cluster of highly mixed-use buildings, made up of office, hotel and cinema, and residential quarters.

The hotel and cinema quarters are linked by a grand stair —  a geometric explosion of more than 2,250 timber pieces salvaged from the Nishi building site itself, a basketball court and a house. The cinema sits on the ground floor — an eight screen independent cinema designed by Design Office and operated by Palace Electric, accessed via Phillip Law Street. The design includes a box office café, a subterranean bar and auditoriums.

Up the grand stair, the hotel’s public lounge is a series of series of nested spaces made of woven rough-formed concrete structural lintels. Together, they house the hotel’s reception, concierge and library, the Monster Kitchen and Bar restaurant, the Mosaic dining room and the Roji hair salon.

The hotel’s 68 rooms occupy the first two levels of the Nishi residential building. Half of the rooms look out of their opening hardwood windows onto the lake or mountains and half look into the internal atrium populated with tree ferns salvaged from Tasmanian forests destined for clearance. The hotel room interiors are highly detailed with custom furniture, baths, lighting and finishes. They respond to Canberra, the dry bush capital, and reimagine the textures and layers of this landscape through raw materials – reclaimed oak beds, earthen clay walls, eucalyptus strand board, concrete, cork, linen, brass, grass wallpaper, woollen carpets.

The hotel and cinema quarters link the commercial and residential buildings; allowing these usually disparate activities of domestic, work and play, to meet, mingle and merge.