Holiday Inn Express

Cobalt added two full storeys on top of a fully trading Holiday Inn Express on Ealing's high street, bringing 26 new guest rooms online without touching the hotel's footprint. New steel beams and columns went up to the roof first, then down through openings cut into the existing floor slabs, tying the new structure back to the original foundations — work that meant closing the hotel for the duration.

The team ran the full mechanical and electrical install for the new floors, fitted them out in the brand's navy-and-oak finish with kitchenettes in every room, and reinstated the rooms below once the structural work was done. All of it happened on a live high street, with deliveries and lifts scheduled around the site rather than the other way round.