Thirty-Five Years of Daedalian Glass Studios: Landmark Hospitality Design Projects
Daedalian Glass Studios are proud to have worked on many of the UK’s top luxury hospitality design projects over the past 35 years. Indeed, the list is far too long to list them all but in this post, we will look at five that have stood out over the years:
Lawdy, Miss Clawdy (1991)
The left side of a oblong torus leaded light skylight.
The right side of a oblong torus leaded light skylight.
Reaching right back into the project archive, thirty years ago Daedalian Glass Studios were commissioned to create a huge torus shaped leaded lights skylight for a bar in our local market-town, Poulton-Le-Fylde.
With the studio still in its relative infancy, this huge structure was a big undertaking for the small team to manufacture. Another reason why this project makes the list is that it was one of the first projects that our Managing Director, Joe was involved in. Still a child at the time, Joe spend evening and weekends helping in his mothers’ glass studio to earn his pocket money – it definitely beats doing the washing up! Pictures do exist, but Joe is keeping them locked away from us.
The RAC Clubhouse (2000)
RAC CLubhouse Bar Back
RAC Clubhouse waiter station
RAC Clubhouse Cast-Lead Crystal Egg Light Fitting and Bar Back
The focal point of this installation was an antique bronze structure glass clad with decorative glass. Daedalian Glass Studios designed and installed this installation, as well as manufacturing all glass components and sourcing the metalwork through our network or trusted industry partners. Flanking the bar backs are two custom cast lead crystal light atop wooden columns, again designed and manufactured at our studios, whilst the installation is complemented by matching tops for the waiter stations.
In 2019 the Brooklands Bar was redesigned by Goddard Littlefair. A real testament to the longevity of this installation is that we liaised with their designers regarding the glass in-situ and the feature bar back was integrated into their updated designs.
The Savoy Hotel (2010)
The Savoy Hotel Bar, Beaufort Bar front
Deep etched bar front for the Savoy Hotel
Davia etching the bar front for the Savoy Hotel
The Beaufort Bar front at The Savoy Hotel, London
The Savoy Hotel is a great example of deep-etching into the surface of glass. At its deepest, the etching penetrated 8mm into the surface of this 15mm glass panel – over half the thickness drilled out by hand.
Once our Founder and Creatine Director, Davia had completed the panel, so much glass had been removed from one side that it had warped in shape (like a banana!). To create a perfectly straight panel, compliant with all BS codes for installation into a commercial environment, the panel was then laminated to 10mm toughened glass to form safety glass. The finished panel has dimensions of 3000mm x 1000mm x 27mm with a total weight of 165KG.
It is worth noting that this design is one that our studio team would normally opt to cast in perfectly-clear lead crystal glass. We went down the route of etching in 15mm float as the green tinge in the float glass matched with the brand colours of the hotel.
The Lanesborough Hotel (2015)
The Celeste Restaurant at the Lanesborough HoteL
The Lanesborough – Celeste Restaurant – Screen glass panels made by Daedalian Glass Studios
Belgravia Private Dining Room in the Lanesborough Hotel showcasing Hand Silvered Antique Mirrored Columns
The Lanesborough Hotel project had two phases; the Celeste restaurant and the Belgravia private dining rooms.
For the Celeste Restaurant, Daedalian Glass Studios were commissioned to create a series of restaurant partition screens in etched glass. Whilst etched glass partition screens are not an uncommon requirement to be commissioned for, the thing that set these apart was the level of detail in the design supplied by Alberto Pinto.
Additional to the partition screens, Daedalian Glass Studios created a partition wall between the dining area and the wine store using a matching etched design. The etched panels with installed into the partition wall as double-glazed units, with switchable glass on the rear. This allowed the screen to be transparent during lunch and dinner services and opaque during breakfast service (to hide the wine store when not serving alcohol).
For the Belgravia private dining room, Daedalian Glass Studio created a series of custom 25mm -wide reeded glass pilasters. These were custom-made by cutting groves into glass panels using a CNC then hand-polishing the grooves to remove all machine marks. Once hand-antique silvered these were mechanically fixed to the walls with screws using hand-made lead crystal rosettes as screw cover caps.
Daedalian Glass Studios also created beveled clustered pelmets for the Belgravia room, once again mechanically fixed using rosettes as cover caps. The constituent panels of these pelmets were water-jet cut to shape, beveled, and brilliant cut prior to being hand-antiqued to match the pilasters.
In total, this project took 16 months from design to project completion.
The Belmond Cadogan Hotel (2018)
Belmond Cadogan Hotel, reeded shower doors
Belmond Cadogan Hotel frosted shower doors.
The Belmond Cadogan Hotel project is different from the rest on this list as it has been chosen for the challenge it provided our installations team.
One of Daedalian Glass Studios unique selling points is that we will design and manufacture completely bespoke glass installations – if the designer can conceive it, we will figure out how to make it a reality! For this reason, it is usually our glass design and production teams who have the most challenging task. However, on this project the glass was relatively straight-forward to design and manufacture, but our installations team had the task of installing shower and WC closets across all 54 guest bedrooms, as well as various public areas.
This project is a good example of how our studios has grown over the past 35 years and can now accept commissions for large-scale production and installation projects.
If you would like to discuss a glass project, please contact our team via email ([email protected]) or phone (01253 702 531).
