Ace Hotel’s first foray into Australia is a ‘deep homage’ to the country

A landscape painting by Indigenous Australian artist Albert Namatjira was the starting point for Ace Hotel Sydney’s terracotta-tinted interiors.

The Ace Hotel Sydney is located in Surry Hills, on the site of an 1820s kiln, and it takes over a building that’s been used as a warehouse, pharmacy dispensary, garment factory and high school in its previous life. For its latest incarnation, the original exteriors have been completely restored.

Melbourne practice Flack Studio designed Ace Hotel Sydney’s interiors, drawing on the work of Australian artists and architects to lend the hotel an innate sense of the country’s history. The building’s own varied past informed some of the choices of materials, with concrete, locally sourced timber and aged brass, chosen to reflect the architecture’s ‘utilitarian’ life.

The colour palette is also key, drawing on the earthy tones of work by late Indigenous artist Albert Namatjira. Leather upholstery, moss green ceilings, terracotta tiles and flashes of burnt umber all bring a sense of the Australian landscape to the hotel.

It also lends a vintage flavour to the building, further emphasised by geometric, modular-syle wayfinding and signage creed by Prahran-based Studio Ongarato. There’s even a conversation pit in the hotel lobby.

Up on the roof is Ace Hotel Sydney’s aptly named Kiln restaurant and bar, planted with native grasses and eucalyptus. Rooms start at AUD $399 per night.

47/53 Wentworth Ave, Sydney NSW 2000, Australia