Adaptive Reuse in Hotel Design: Working With Heritage Buildings
Date
November 6, 2026
Reading Time
6 Minutes
In a 2021 interview with Vietcetera, Studio Noor Co-Founder and Design Director David Hodkinson described adaptive reuse as a good idea that suits some buildings better than others. It works well for bars and restaurants, where an existing room brings a character that is hard to design from scratch. Hotels are harder, because modern services have to be brought into a structure that was never built for them. He also said the studio had long wanted to do more of this work in Vietnam. Five years on, the question is more relevant than when he answered it. This article looks at what has changed, what makes a historic hotel project different, and what the studio has learned from restoring hotels in Cambodia and Türkiye.
Why adaptive reuse matters now
Adaptive reuse means giving an existing building a new use while keeping what makes it worth keeping. In hospitality, it sits within a wider move towards working with what already stands.
The clearest figures come from the United States. Lodging Econometrics counted 1,461 hotel conversion projects, representing 141,971 rooms, at the end of the first quarter of 2026, up 3% by projects and 4% by rooms year on year. Conversions and renovations together reached 2,041 projects and 258,665 rooms. Most of these are not historic buildings, and many are changes of brand. But they show how much of the industry’s activity now happens inside existing structures.
Vietnam starts from a different position. When THP News reviewed the country’s high-end hotel pipeline in August 2023, it found 133 newbuilds among 140 projects, with three conversions and four refurbishments. In the Vietcetera interview, David pointed to the high value of land as the main reason: it makes keeping an older building harder to justify.
There are signs of movement. In April 2026, Palladium Hotel Group and Hanoitourist announced that the Hòa Bình Hotel in Hanoi would be renovated and repositioned as a five-star hotel under the BLESS Collection name, with construction expected to start this year. The stock exists too. A 2018 workshop on preservation in Ho Chi Minh City put the number of old villas in the city at 1,277, of which 808 were in District 3.
The core tension: a hotel is not a museum
A heritage hotel has to meet two demands that pull in opposite directions. The building needs to be protected. The guest expects the same comfort as in a new five-star property.
Restoration alone does not solve this. A hotel that is only preserved becomes a place to visit rather than a place to stay. A hotel that is only upgraded loses the reason a guest chose it. The design work lies in deciding, room by room, what stays untouched, what is repaired and what is new.
The difficulty is mostly invisible. Air conditioning, plumbing, fire safety, acoustic separation and data all need a route through walls and floors that were not designed to carry them. Existing room sizes rarely match a current brand standard. Corridors, stairs and thresholds may not meet accessibility requirements. Each of these has a cost, and each can damage the building if it is resolved late. As David said in the interview, bringing modern services into an old structure is often challenging and expensive. That is why these projects need to be judged on their real constraints, not on their appeal.
Survey first, concept second
In The Noor Method, Context & Research comes before the Concept Narrative is written. On a new hotel, that stage covers the site, the climate, local building traditions and the craft base. On an existing building, it also becomes a survey of what is there: original materials, past alterations, and elements that carry the memory of the place.
Sometimes this research produces the concept itself. The studio once studied an old trading office in Myanmar, believed to date from the 1920s, for conversion into a hotel. The furniture and screens found in the building shaped the proposal, and a screen that had served as an office partition became the starting point for the bathroom design.
Craft is the second consideration. Repairing original work requires specialists, and they need to be identified early. New elements then have to be designed so that they stay in the background. Procurement Support protects these choices when budgets tighten, and Construction & Site Involvement matters more here than on any other type of project, because an old building will always reveal something that the drawings did not show.
Case studies
Splendid Palas · Büyükada, Istanbul · 2016
The hotel has stood at the heart of Büyükada, the largest of the Princes’ Islands, since 1908. Studio Noor oversaw a phased restoration over nearly a decade. The herringbone parquet was restored plank by plank, and ornate plasterwork cornices were repaired by specialist craftspeople from Istanbul. The ballroom chandelier stayed in its original position. New interventions were designed to be nearly invisible: furniture scaled to the proportions of the rooms, and lighting that respects the building’s natural light.
Raffles · Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, Cambodia · 2012–2018
Two historic hotels, one client and one operator: the Grand Hotel d’Angkor, founded in 1932, and Raffles Le Royal, founded in 1929. The brief for both was to restore them without turning them into museums. The same philosophy guided both projects, but the results differ. Siem Reap is formal and architectural. Phnom Penh is warmer and quieter. Respecting a building means responding to its own character, not applying a heritage style.
Sofitel Saigon Plaza · Ho Chi Minh City · 2003 & 2019
This hotel is not a heritage building, but the same principle applies. Studio Noor was first appointed in 2003 and later worked on the grand ballroom, lobby, restaurant, guest rooms and executive floors. Materials were updated, proportions refined and lighting redesigned, while the hotel’s core structure and quality of welcome were treated as fixed. An urban hotel has to evolve without erasing what made it worth returning to.
What this means for developers and operators
Survey the building before fixing the room count. In an existing structure, the number of keys follows from the building, not the other way round.
Plan the services route early. Mechanical, electrical and fire systems should be coordinated with the design from the outset, because they are the most likely source of damage and cost.
Separate what is valuable from what is only old. Not every original element deserves protection, and later alterations are often the first things to remove.
Check the brand standard at the start. Discuss deviations with the operator before the concept is set. A historic building is a reason to agree exceptions, not a reason to hide them.
Budget for phasing and contingency. Splendid Palas took nearly a decade. Not every project will take that long, but openings up should be expected, and a programme with no margin will force poor decisions on site.
Identify specialist craftspeople before tender. Stone, plaster and timber repair skills are limited and cannot be sourced at the last minute.
Conclusion
David’s view from 2021 still holds: adaptive reuse suits some buildings better than others, and hotels are among the hardest cases. But a large share of the industry’s work now happens inside existing buildings, and a historic hotel offers something that a newbuild cannot design from scratch. The work is to keep that quality while making the building perform as a hotel.
Studio Noor has worked on existing hotels in Asia and Europe since 2003. If you are considering a heritage building for a hotel, resort or F&B project, the studio’s directors would welcome a conversation. Contact the studio directly: info@studionoordesign.com
