David Chipperfield Architects and Ester Bruzkus Architekten unveil competition-winning design for NOBU hotel and restaurant in Hamburg

David Chipperfield Architects Berlin with Ester Bruzkus Architekten have unveiled their competition-winning design for NOBU, a hotel and restaurant development in Hamburg's HafenCity district. The interior design project will take place within the new 61-story Elbtower, which Chipperfield also designed.

The 177,000-square-foot hotel will comprise 188 rooms, a restaurant, cocktail lounge, bar, conference facility, and fitness club with spa facilities and a Japanese outdoor garden. The restaurant has been imagined as the “heart” of the hotel, which guests reach by ascending a monumental staircase from the ground-floor bar. The space is designed as a series of discrete rooms as well as a central dining room. 

“The Hamburg NOBU Hotel’s design, materiality, and color scheme are based on authentic representations of the local northern Germany natural landscape — with its harbor, sea, sand, shells, and plants,” Peter Greenberg, partner at Ester Bruzkus Architekten, said about the design. “Simple, natural materials of high quality create an atmosphere characterized by the contrast between cool concrete, natural stone, and warm woods.”

“The clear, reduced design language with finely crafted details approaches Japanese design principles and finds its inspiration in the simplicity of the preparation of Japanese food,” Greenberg added.

Construction of the project is expected to be completed in 2026.

Details of the scheme come weeks after David Chipperfield was awarded the 2023 Pritzker Prize. Other projects from the office recently featured in our editorial include the firm’s reinvented Morland Mixite Capitale, which was recently completed in Paris.