One Dorset Square is a well-preserved Grade II Listed building on the corner of Dorset Square in Marylebone, London. The proposals for the former ‘Spy Corner’ building, the home of the French Resistance in London during World War II, seek to transform the site from a tired educational establishment into a boutique aparthotel following the closure of the school in 2023.

The proposals include the refurbishment, restoration and repair of the exterior, alongside a complete, but sensitively introduced transformation of the interior to provide 14 highly appointed aparthotel suites that bring the vacant building back into use.

The approach restores the original proportions of the rooms, removing modern internal partitions, and a cacophony of inappropriate services, and introduces a series of carefully crafted joinery elements into the generous volumes of the reinstated rooms. These new interventions, which contain bathrooms and kitchenettes, are conceived as items of furniture, preserving the original volume and allowing for their removal in the future with the minimum of impact on the historic fabric of the building. This approach keeps the new work clearly secondary to the existing spaces while respecting the original form of the building.