The Line occupies 12 stories of minimalist Modernism in the center of Koreatown's throbbing heart at Wilshire and Normandie.
Its design is a sympathetic reaction to the city's eclectic hot pot of peoples and culture, history and future. The guiding concept was not to overdesign but to offer guests a clean visual space to inspire contemplation and decompression. A sanctuary in what is otherwise the most densely populated and hyperactive neighborhood in the city. For the guestrooms we constructed an atmosphere utilizing a limited palette of tones and materials intermittently punctuated with splashes of hot color. We also chose materials with minimal processing, such as the exposed raw concrete and unpainted finishes of wood. On the ceiling, t-shirts become frescos and on the tables water jugs become centerpieces – materials not otherwise considered luxury-worthy but elevated “through substitution.” In this way we allow the building and the materials to tell their own story, giving the space an intimacy that interacts with the guest.
It was an extraordinary move by the hotel's developer The Sydell Group to place the majority of the design of the hotel all under the hat of one designer – something that rarely happens, especially in projects of this depth and scale. The backers were looking for an extraordinary hotel experience and knew they'd found it at Knibb Design.
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