A Fictional Hotel with Real Furniture
At Ex Hotel, Gabriel Hope solidifies his imagination.
INTERIOR / BULLETIN / 27.11.23
Read time / 7 mins
Mikael wears his take on an office t-shirt in a formal mid-weight cotton pique. On the blind behind him is the FIELDS brand totem, designed by Daniel Ting Chong.
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[01] HOMEY’s monolithic office desks take shape at the Ex Hotel workshop. Higher up in the background, the kitchenette is almost ready for installation. Photograph by Ex Hotel.
“In a hotel, you can leave yourself behind and reinvent who you are, even if just for a brief moment,” says Cape Town-based furniture designer, Gabriel Hope. His sparks of imagination ignite inside the fictional Ex Hotel, a space that serves as both muse and metaphor. It’s where Gabriel’s thoughts and concepts coalesce, linger and transform before materialising in the physical world. At Ex Hotel, you might have drinks with an ex at the bar, enjoy long summer days at the pool, encounter the well-dressed-but-badly-behaved bellboy, and eat delicious room service in a slightly rundown room that evokes the grandeur of a time gone by. Some guests visit the lobby for a coffee, while others stay longer, and some never leave. Similarly, Gabriel has ideas that remain pure fantasy, while others become three-dimensional objects in the form of stools, cabinets and bed frames.
HOMEY’s monolithic office desks take shape at the Ex Hotel workshop. Higher up in the background, the kitchenette is almost ready for installation. Photograph by Ex Hotel.
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In the early production phase, Gabriel cuts pine ply panels with a compound mitre saw, and then with a table saw.
“My focus is on an economy of making,” Gabriel explains. “Creating objects that complement what already exists, rather than dominating a space.” Chairs from HOMEY’s previous office slot perfectly into custom Ex Hotel desks. Photograph by Paris Brummer.
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Mind maps and other notes are taped to Gabriel’s tool cabinet doors. "It’s about keeping good ideas top of mind. If you put them in a notebook, you never look at them again." Photograph by Antoinette Degens.
Gabriel’s use of colour and proportion reflects the HOMEY website’s graphic design language. Photograph by Paris Brummer.
Ex Hotel as a business is premised on the duality of the hotel’s dream world narrative and functional design through thoughtful craftsmanship. Gabriel experiments with the gaps and connections between the idea of things and the thingness of objects. The challenge of how to bridge the gap between the two is ongoing and plays out in a very real workspace in Cape Town’s industrial Paarden Eiland. When I visit on a hot September morning, Gabriel is eager to show me around, moving from a pile of raw material through his tools and works in progress. The studio is a place of intense physical labour but also of meditation. His furniture design methodology is not just about translating fiction to factual matter; it’s about allowing ideas to evolve organically through processes that become as meaningful as the final output.
“I love furniture that can be lived with,” says Gabriel. “Things aren’t made just to be admired but to be useful and joyful.”
In a recent collaboration with HOMEY, Ex Hotel built bespoke furniture for the magazine’s new office at the Montebello Design Centre in Newlands. The pieces are a play on the HOMEY website’s graphic design elements, ushered through Ex Hotel and translated into tangible forms. From the simple yet daring finish of exposed plywood to the pale band that frames the top of the furniture, and the red storage cabinet door (a direct reference to HOMEY’s signature accent colour), each piece is crafted to align with both the functional and conceptual demands of the space.
The project highlights the relationship between the object and its user, resonating with HOMEY’s approach to crafting timeless, mindful work. The centrepiece of the months-long collaboration is a 4-person work desk designed to elongate and add depth to the 25 square metre space, carefully crafted as a core, utilitarian aspect of the office. This monolithic workspace nods to editor-in-chief Antoinette Degens’ affinity for the geometric simplicity of Comme Des Garçons store designs, and set the tone for a matching kitchenette and shelving unit. Each design is, by furniture standards, efficiently portable.
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Extra music stands on standby outside CPO's rehearsal space at Artscape.
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Koos also illustrated Simiso during his CPO rehearsal. “I’m enjoying my life, musically.” Simiso says. “It’s making sense.”
“In my projects, especially when working within tight spaces, it’s crucial that everything can be taken apart and reassembled. This reversibility adds a layer of complexity to how I approach joinery,” Gabriel notes, emphasising the need for flexibility in both design and function. “I create standalone furniture — pieces that are not fixed to walls, but can move and adapt,” he clarifies. This is particularly interesting to a young, growing business like HOMEY. “I shy away from the kind of built-in furniture that’s popular elsewhere, where everything feels glued down. It creates a lack of flexibility and sustainability.”
When I questioned him further about the ability to assemble and disassemble pieces, Gabriel expresses a core commonality between his and HOMEY’s values — the very thing that drew the editors to him for this project. “There’s something almost frenetic about using nails. It’s a passionate, rapid way to attach things, but it’s not built to last. The joinery techniques I prefer require a slower, more deliberate approach, resulting in pieces that endure over time. It’s the difference between a fleeting moment and a lasting experience.”
Gabriel’s furniture design methodology isn’t only about translating fiction to factual matter; it’s about allowing ideas to evolve organically through processes that become as meaningful as the final output.
In designing furniture, the choice of materials can deeply influence not only the aesthetics but also the experience of the piece itself. For the HOMEY office project, Gabriel opted for pine plywood, a material that can be challenging to work with and is often disregarded because of its low price point. Choosing this material, which he crafted into considered pieces without concealing its character, highlights HOMEY and Ex Hotel’s philosophies of embracing authenticity and simplicity, speaking to the essence of things as opposed to the flourishes. This philosophy is evident in his approach to materials and construction. “I love furniture that can be lived with,” he explains. “Things aren’t made just to be admired but to be useful and joyful.”
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Gabriel's joinery intentionally excludes nails. After an initial glue up, the HOMEY storage unit is clamped together to dry. Photograph by Ex Hotel.
The red storage cabinet door references HOMEY’s signature accent colour. Photograph by Paris Brummer.
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When Mikael Hanan gets an idea, whether it’s on a walk or in the middle of the night, he adds it to his Google calendar to be reassessed and either scrapped or shared with his team the following morning. The son of an analytical father and creative mother, Mikael embodies an ideal duality for navigating South Africa’s unstructured fashion industry. With a legacy in e-commerce operations and management as co-founder of Superbalist and second hire at ARC, Mikael is focusing on building his independent label, addressing fashion’s unhealthy relationship with newness in a constructive way while showcasing world class product to a global community of shoppers.
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FIELDS sweaters are knitted from Responsible Wool Standard-certified fibres, meaning the sheep are ethically raised on farms that protect soil health and biodiversity.
[01] Mikael wears his take on an office t-shirt in a formal mid-weight cotton piqué. On the blind behind him is the FIELDS brand mark, a totem designed by Daniel Ting Chong.
The One Night Stand straddles the line between furniture and sculpture. “I want to explore that awkward space,” Gabriel says. Photograph by Ex Hotel.
“I’d rather have nothing than something I didn’t love.”
Sometimes objects like a stool or storage unit are made with a singular functionality in mind. Other times, like with Gabriel’s decorative One Night Stand nightstand, they straddle the line between furniture and sculpture. “I want to explore that awkward space,” he explains, noting his tendency to borrow strategies from contemporary art making, architecture and design practices to map out contemporary thresholds of what useful and beautiful objects could look like. For instance, the nightstand is editioned (1/1), echoing printmaking logic where an object is made as one in a limited series.
FIELDS sweaters are knitted from Responsible Wool Standard-certified fibres, meaning the sheep are ethically raised on farms that protect soil health and biodiversity.
[01] Mikael wears his take on an office t-shirt in a formal mid-weight cotton piqué. On the blind behind him is the FIELDS brand mark, a totem designed by Daniel Ting Chong.
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The desks’ LED strip lighting gives the HOMEY office a welcome glow. Gabriel describes the recurring curves in his work as formalist: an aesthetic decision which also provides a practical sense of flow in the space. Photograph by Paris Brummer.
Gabriel sands a pine ply panel as an essential part of the surface preparation process. Then, from above, he shapes the storage cabinet legs with a hand router.
Growing up around a father who was a skilled furniture maker instilled an appreciation for craftsmanship and aesthetics. “There’s definitely a practical influence there,” Gabriel acknowledges, “but I don’t know if that’s the sole reason I’m here.” During his university years studying Fine Art at Wits with a major in photography, Gabriel began creating his own furniture. “I had a visual issue with stuff,” he shares, recalling how his mattress sat on the floor for years because he couldn’t find a bed frame to his liking. “I’d rather have nothing than something I didn’t love.”
Influences from his past experiences shape Gabriel’s current work. He cites a significant period spent with two prominent artists: sculptors Serge Alain Nitegeka and Wim Botha. “Working with Wim was incredibly formative. His pieces often embody a sense of destruction and transformation. It’s about creating something and then deconstructing it to explore new forms.” He elaborates: “In contrast, Serge’s influence is more formal and structured. His work emphasises clean lines and rigorous forms. When I look at the project for HOMEY, I can see his influence in the clean aesthetic of the designs. The methods I learned in both studios are now intertwined in my work.”
Another key lesson learned is the value of patience in the creative process. “Both Wim and Serge had pieces that sat unfinished for long periods,” Gabriel explains. “I’ve started to embrace that luxury, letting my ideas simmer.” This seems to be at the heart of the impulse to construct a fictional abode: to house ideas that need time to breathe and live. As his small business has grown, so too have the demands on Gabriel’s time. “In the beginning, I could spend hours diving deep into the fictional side of Ex Hotel. But as I took on responsibilities like accounting and procurement, those creative reflections took a backseat,” he notes. “Now, I’m returning to that space, able to think about the project again with a fresh perspective and renewed momentum.”
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Performing at South Africa's busiest malls is an unmatched public relations exercise. “That’s the power of busking,” Simiso attests. “It opens doors.”
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Busking remains an integral aspect of Simiso’s creative practice. “When I entertain people and see them happy, I come home with a smile.”
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Furniture gets the finishing touch: an Ex Hotel key tag. Gabriel’s recent projects include a library for the African Art Resource Centre at the Zeitz MOCAA museum in Cape Town, and a collaboration with visual artist Koos Groenewald, Broken People / Fixed Positions, where Gabriel crafted bespoke plinths for Koos’s ceramic sculptures. Photograph by Ex Hotel.
The factual, fully-realised HOMEY office at Cape Town’s Montebello Design Centre. Book an appointment to visit us via email: hello@homeymagazine.com. Photograph by Paris Brummer.
Gabriel thinks of each project like a chapter in a larger narrative. There’s a kind of performative quality too with each storied object he makes — often paired down and subtle, they hold larger fantasies, and one might even say ideals. If fiction is Gabriel’s tool to navigate the space between reality and imagination, then Ex Hotel embodies a balance between fact and possibility. With its blend of simplicity, play and experimentation, it creates a world of potential where things exist both as they are and as they might be. The HOMEY office, a hub for creative production, is the perfect example of that. —
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