Tuve

Kim Høltermand, a Danish photographer, describes the mood of his black-and-white panoramas of Lake Tuve, in Sweden, as cold and lonely, and the owner of this hotel, who has stayed anonymous, wanted a building that felt the same. Design Systems, a Hong Kong studio, turned the mood into materials: concrete, galvanised steel, brass, oak, wired glass and marble. It opened in Tin Hau in 2015. The way in from Tsing Fung Street is an open doorway in a black corrugated wall, beside rusted steel doors, then a long passage of board-marked concrete. Reception is a block of the same concrete under a perforated gold ceiling, in front of a wall pricked with points of light, with a single brass bowl on it: the warmest thing in the room. The rooms keep to the palette: bare concrete behind a slatted timber headboard, oak panelling, wired glass, and in the bathroom a concrete basin under an amber mirror, against marble swirled black and white.

Recommended for couples who want a hotel with a strong idea of itself for under £150 a night, and mean to eat out. There is no bar and no room service, and the one place to eat is the ground-floor café, with breakfast at extra charge and an afternoon tea for two. Nothing more is needed: the hotel stands in Tin Hau's food square, three streets of restaurants. The front desk books restaurants and shows; Victoria Park is about eight minutes' walk, and the Jardine's Crescent market in Causeway Bay about fifteen. Upstairs it is cold and lonely, as ordered, and the streets outside have about 150 restaurants.