Where most two-level clubs default to a theatre-style balcony overlooking a stage, Amsterdam-based studio Concrete gave 77, the new 550-capacity venue beneath The BoTree hotel in London’s Marylebone, an intentionally asymmetrical upper level instead. The project activates two previously underused basement levels of an existing hotel rather than building new, treating architecture, light, and sound as a single connected system rather than three separate disciplines layered on top of each other. The result reads less like a conventional nightclub and more like a spatial instrument tuned for constantly shifting sightlines.
The raw volume Concrete inherited was a double-height basement space with no fixed program attached to it — the design process began from that emptiness rather than a predetermined club typology. Building within existing hotel infrastructure instead of new construction shaped every decision that followed, avoiding new-build impact while making use of space the hotel had no other purpose for.
The asymmetrical configuration that replaces the expected theatre-style balcony is the project’s central move: it generates constantly shifting sightlines and alternative perspectives, letting guests experience the club from multiple visual angles across both levels of this asymmetrical nightclub design. A sculptural staircase connects the two, functioning as both a structural necessity and the venue’s focal design gesture — the piece guests physically move through rather than around, reinforcing what Concrete calls the space’s vertical narrative.
Gold and silver LED lighting runs as a continuous grid that follows the curved, asymmetrical geometry of the interior, connecting the upper and lower levels into a single visual field and forming the backbone of a light show synchronized directly with the sound system. The dancefloor itself is organized around a centrally positioned DJ booth raised on its own platform, with a monumental video screen cascading from the ceiling behind it and complementary screens opposite extending the visual field further.
Materiality reinforces what Concrete describes as the club’s dual identity of luxury and intensity: a dark base palette sets the backdrop, gold and silver accents amplify the light, and the bar opposite the DJ booth is clad in folded ribbed metal for texture and depth. Full-service bars and restrooms on both levels eliminate vertical bottlenecks, letting the floors function as one cohesive environment or split into private hire zones — a flexibility CLAP Studio’s Oven Club in Valencia pursues through a similarly reconfigurable immersive nightlife venue approach, though built around a different sound-and-light logic.
The venue’s L-Acoustics sound system, built around KS21 subwoofers, pairs with Robe lighting, lasers, CO2 jets, strobes and LED screens for what the team calls a fully immersive environment. “We’ve designed 77 to deliver the same world class production experience you’d expect from a huge venue, whilst ensuring the connection between the artist and the audience is at the forefront,” said Eniz Hilmi, Director of Music, in a statement, adding that the venue encourages DJs to play extended sets — in some cases all night — a freedom rarely offered elsewhere in London. Behind the project sit three industry figures: Jonathan Wade, a nightlife veteran and former Tao Group executive; Hilmi himself; and Sebastian Banovic, a hospitality operator formerly of KOKO, The Roof Gardens and Tramp.
Whether an asymmetrical balcony and a synchronized LED grid amount to a genuinely new club typology, or simply a more expensive version of the sightline problem every multi-level venue already tries to solve, is the question 77 doesn’t fully settle — the subterranean club design solves for variety of view rather than for a single, shared collective moment, and those aren’t automatically the same goal.
77 by Concrete | Location: 77 Welbeck Street, London, W1G 0BB, United Kingdom — Year: 2025 — Key materials: black stained oak, folded ribbed metal, gold and silver metal LED fins, terrazzo flooring, black granite, mirrored panels