TRIBE Düsseldorf – Germany
Inclusive design, local art and social energy transform a former city-centre hotel into a new kind of urban gathering place.
Why DNA Hotels Loves It
● London studio Feix&Merlin built the entire interior concept around the mathematical [+] symbol, representing the idea that “everything inside is included.”
● Local artist Isabella Bellis brings Düsseldorf into the rooms through specially commissioned photography celebrating individuality and diversity.
● The reception desk doubles as a cocktail bar, while lounge, co-working and dining spaces deliberately overlap — reflecting TRIBE’s idea that contemporary hotels should be social rather than compartmentalised.
Everything Inside Is Included
A mathematical symbol isn’t the most obvious starting point for a hotel. At TRIBE Düsseldorf, however, [+] explains almost everything. When London-based design studio Feix&Merlin transformed the former Intercity Hotel into this 146-room TRIBE outpost, it used the symbol as shorthand for inclusion: different people, different purposes and different moments of the day brought together under one roof. Look carefully and [+] begins appearing everywhere. It influences the spatial planning, custom joinery and graphic details, while the reception desk — which also functions as the cocktail bar — takes its form from the brackets themselves. It’s branding translated into architecture rather than simply applied to it.
From Nightlife to New Life
The building already had a social history. Before becoming the Intercity Hotel, the site was associated with the Bhagwan-Disco, part of Düsseldorf’s nightlife during the 1980s and 1990s. TRIBE’s incarnation is very different, but the idea of bringing people together hasn’t entirely disappeared. The hotel sits close to Düsseldorf Hauptbahnhof, with the city centre and Königsallee within easy reach. Rather than trying to create a retreat from urban life, TRIBE plugs directly into it. The energy belongs downstairs.
Feix&Merlin’s Social Hotel
The ground floor deliberately avoids the conventional sequence of reception, lobby, bar and restaurant. Instead, functions flow into one another. The Social Hub works as lounge, workplace, meeting point and informal living room. Seating arrangements accommodate someone opening a laptop just as naturally as friends meeting for drinks. The reception counter morphs into the bar. A Grab & Go offer keeps things informal. And as morning becomes evening, work gives way to cocktails without requiring the room itself to completely change identity. This flexibility is fundamental to TRIBE’s philosophy: spend money and space on the things guests actually use, then make those things work harder.
The Plus Sign
Feix&Merlin founders Julia Feix and Tarek Merlin describe TRIBE as a gathering of like-minded individuals connected through shared values. Their [+] concept gives that slightly abstract idea a physical language. Brackets and crosses reappear in furniture, patterns and architectural details, creating continuity between public areas and bedrooms. But importantly, inclusivity isn’t treated merely as a slogan on a wall. The spaces themselves are intentionally accessible in mood — colourful and design-conscious, but informal enough that sitting down with a coffee doesn’t feel like occupying somebody else’s carefully staged lobby. Good design doesn’t have to intimidate.
Düsseldorf Through Isabella Bellis
The strongest local layer comes from artist and photographer Isabella Bellis. Photography created specifically for the hotel appears throughout the property, including bedrooms, corridors and lifts, bringing human individuality into an interior otherwise shaped by strong graphic geometry. In the rooms, her imagery is integrated into specially designed textiles and drapery, where it interacts with the recurring [+] monogram. That juxtaposition works particularly well. Feix&Merlin provides the system. Bellis brings in the people.
Concrete, Colour and Green
The physical palette plays the same game of contrasts. Existing and industrial-looking concrete gives the interiors an urban backbone, while plants, saturated textiles, patterned surfaces and artwork prevent the architecture becoming cold. Guest rooms are relatively streamlined, but they’re not anonymous. Colour, graphic curtains and art introduce personality without filling limited space with unnecessary furniture. The result follows the wider TRIBE formula: compact where it makes sense, generous where guests actually notice it. It’s design with an economic logic behind it. And that’s rather the point.
TRIBE TABLE
Food continues the informal approach at TRIBE TABLE, where the concept takes inspiration from Californian dining culture. The emphasis is on relaxed, seasonal food suited to sharing rather than ceremonial hotel dining. That makes sense within a property whose boundaries are intentionally blurred. Restaurant, bar, workplace and lobby are not separate worlds competing for guests. Together they form the hotel’s social landscape. There’s also a gym plus meeting and event spaces, extending the same approach beyond leisure travellers.
A Different Kind of Design Hotel
TRIBE belongs to an interesting generation of hospitality brands questioning an old assumption: that good hotel design inevitably belongs at the expensive end of the market. Instead of adding marble bathrooms, enormous bedrooms and layers of traditional service, the brand concentrates investment where it creates atmosphere — furniture, lighting, artwork, social spaces, food and graphic identity. Düsseldorf adds another idea to that formula. Inclusion itself becomes part of the design brief. Not through grand gestures, but through spaces intended to accommodate different people and different ways of using a hotel.
Why It Works
TRIBE Düsseldorf isn’t trying to be Düsseldorf’s grandest hotel. That’s precisely why the concept feels relevant. Feix&Merlin has taken the brand’s accessible design philosophy and given it a clear visual idea: [+] — add rather than exclude. Local art, industrial materials, flexible public spaces and a reception desk that turns into a bar all reinforce the same message. TRIBE Düsseldorf demonstrates that inclusive hospitality can be more than a marketing statement. Here, it becomes the organising principle of the hotel itself — social, colourful, flexible and designed around the simple pleasure of bringing people together.
