The Box – Riccione, Italy
A once-abandoned Adriatic Riviera hotel reinvented with global design, playful details and a distinctly contemporary attitude.
Why DNA Hotels Loves It
● Architects Marianna Chiaraluce and Alfredo Monetti transformed the abandoned Hotel Sixty into something Riccione didn’t have: a genuinely design-driven boutique hotel.
● Its interiors bring together an unusually international cast of design names, from PSLab and Moroso to Knoll and 366 Concept, without losing the relaxed spirit of the Adriatic coast.
● MAD – Meet And Drink turns the ground floor into more than a hotel lobby, mixing brunch, cocktails, dinner and ping-pong in a space designed for locals as much as guests.
Less, But Better
Riccione has never been short of hotels. For generations, this stretch of the Adriatic has been one of Italy’s classic seaside playgrounds, its shoreline lined with beach clubs, umbrellas and holiday hotels. The Box decided not to make another one. When the abandoned Hotel Sixty was taken over, architects Marianna Chiaraluce and Alfredo Monetti of Hospitality Mood stripped the property back and rebuilt its identity around a deceptively simple philosophy: Less, but better. After an intense eight-month transformation, The Box opened in June 2018 with 40 rooms and a completely different idea of what a Riccione hotel could be.
From Abandoned Hotel to Design Playground
The architecture may have provided the shell, but it is the interiors that give The Box its personality. Rather than following a single Italian design language, Chiaraluce and Monetti assembled pieces from around the world. Handmade brass lighting comes from Beirut-based PSLab. Bedside tables are by Moroso, seating comes from Knoll and Polish brand 366 Concept, and custom elements sit comfortably alongside recognisable design classics. It sounds eclectic. It is. But the result isn’t a furniture showroom. Colours, textures and objects have been layered to create rooms that feel more like the apartment of a particularly well-travelled friend.
40 Rooms, Some Curious Circles
The Box has 40 guestrooms, ranging from compact rooms to larger options with balconies, whirlpool baths and, at the top end, freestanding bathtubs in the bedroom. Some traces of the previous hotel weren’t erased. The smallest rooms retain the original property’s unusual circular bathrooms, a quirky piece of retro-futurism incorporated into the new design rather than demolished simply because it was old. It’s a small detail, but one that says plenty about the project. Reinvention doesn’t necessarily mean starting again.
MAD Inside The Box
Downstairs, the distinction between hotel and neighbourhood hangout becomes deliberately blurry. MAD – Meet And Drink is restaurant, café, cocktail bar and social space rolled into one. Pink Spanish tiles by Vives form the backdrop to an Art Deco-influenced bar in wood and marble, while the menu moves from breakfast and brunch into cocktails and dinner. Avocado toast and brewed coffee might sound more Los Angeles than Emilia-Romagna, but that’s part of the fun. And then there’s ping-pong. Because a hotel that takes design seriously doesn’t necessarily need to take itself seriously.
Riviera, Rewritten
Step outside and you’re almost immediately at the Adriatic. That contrast is what makes The Box particularly interesting. Riccione comes with decades of Italian seaside nostalgia: beach umbrellas, long summer evenings, aperitivo and the wonderfully extroverted culture of the Riviera Romagnola. The Box doesn’t reject any of that. It simply gives it a different setting — less conventional resort hotel, more urban design hideaway that happens to sit beside the beach.
Why It Works
The Box demonstrates what can happen when an unfashionable hotel isn’t simply demolished or cosmetically renovated, but rethought from the inside out. Chiaraluce and Monetti kept enough of the old building to give the project character, then filled it with contemporary furniture, international influences and spaces designed around how people actually spend their time. Have coffee. Work for a while. Meet someone for a drink. Play ping-pong. Walk across to the beach. Less, but better. For The Box, it isn’t just a slogan. It’s the entire point.
