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The beds in London's most unusual hotel are comfortable, the views across the Thames are astonishing and the skateboarders below provide an unusual distraction.
Katharine Hibbert, 30, emerged from her stay in the Room for London, the innovative ship-shaped hotel perched on top of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, full of praise for the unique accommodation.
The Evening Standard's first Ideas for London competition winner said: "It's not only an amazing building but it's an incredibly comfortable bed. I slept like a log apart from there is an odd combination of noises.
"You can't hear much road noise but you can hear the skateboarders quite clearly underneath. And Big Ben," she said.
"It's amazing how boat-like it really is. It really does have all the fittings that a boat would have."
Ms Hibbert, from Poplar, is the first of 12 Standard readers who will stay overnight in the Room for London this year in a competition with arts body Artangel to find innovative ideas to transform the city.
She has developed a scheme to match people willing to do community work with empty homes in need of a temporary "guardian".
At a dinner on board, she was joined by housing experts including Campbell Robb, the chief executive of Shelter, and Shaun Bailey, a youth worker and adviser to David Cameron.
Everyone quickly endorsed the idea and then offered practical ideas for its implementation, Ms Hibbert said. "We moved very quickly on to how to have the best impact," she added.
Since winning, she has secured £15,000 from the Bromley by Bow Centre, a social enterprise organisation, and is about to place the first homeless "guardians" in up to a dozen flats in east London.
Ms Hibbert said she was encouraged by the experts' offer of more advice as the idea develops. She added: "When you spend the day working for no money, you have to believe that the thing you're creating will make people's lives happier." Ms Hibbert said she had worried the dinner itself might be rather dry but - fuelled by wine and mutton stew from the Southbank Centre's restaurant Canteen - it had been "very jolly". She added: "I'm absolutely thrilled to have won."
The Room for London is the idea of Alain de Botton and his Living Architecture foundation to give people the chance to stay in beautiful buildings. Public bookings for most of the night stays sold in minutes but the Ideas for London competition is still open.
Reader views (1)
To get into a (temporarily) vacant home you have to be homeless and willing to do community work? Seems full of snags to me, particularly the homeowner whose home is being "guarded". Guarded from what? Or are the homes involved just unallocated council flats in the east London slums, which makes the need for a guardian obvious. A baffling journalist effort, Louise.
- len moss, brighton, 27/01/2012 16:12
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