Wanderlust, The Unlimited Collection by Oakwood (SG Clean)

Four Design Studios, One Hotel, Four Floors

Wanderlust occupies an original 1920s building in Little India, the second Singapore hotel from New Majestic Group founder Loh Lik Peng, who built his reputation on turning heritage shells into design statements rather than conventional boutique hotels. Instead of commissioning one interior designer for the whole building, he hired four separate Singaporean studios and gave each a single floor to reinvent on its own terms. The result, spread across four storeys and only 29 rooms, reads less like a hotel than four small design galleries stacked on top of each other, with a historic façade holding the whole experiment together from the street, and nothing about the lobby giving away what waits on the floors above.

Why It Works

We chose this address because the commitment to difference is structural rather than cosmetic: each floor was designed independently, by a different team, with no brief to match the others. That makes the choice of room a genuine decision rather than a formality, and it gives repeat guests a reason to come back and try a different floor next time rather than request the same room twice. It suits travellers who find a uniform boutique aesthetic across 29 rooms less interesting than four genuinely different ones.

Why This Location

Dickson Road sits inside Little India, one of the few central Singapore neighbourhoods where the street-level texture — spice shops, garland stalls, modest coffee shops — hasn't been smoothed over for visitors. It rewards a traveller on foot more than one in a taxi, and it puts the hotel a short ride from the Civic District and Orchard Road without asking guests to stay in either. French Cocotte, the hotel's own restaurant, means an evening doesn't have to start with a decision about where to eat.

Fast Facts

• Price: €€

• Vibe: Design-led, playful, genuinely boutique

• Rooms: 29, across four individually designed floors

• Best For: Design-minded travellers, short stays, couples who want a conversation piece of a room

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: Phunk Studio's single-colour capsule rooms on the first floor, each lit with a neon reference to a colour-themed song title

• Dining: French Cocotte (ground floor)

• Amenities: Outdoor terrace spaces, four distinct themed floors (Industrial Glam, Eccentricity, Is It Just Black and White?, Creature Comforts)

• Attractions: Little India's shops and food stalls (immediate), Civic District and Orchard Road (short ride)

A Floor for Every Mood

The ground floor, Industrial Glam by Asylum's Chris Lee and Cara Ang, sets the tone by putting a Frank Gehry sofa next to vintage print advertisements, old and new deliberately unresolved rather than blended. The first floor, Eccentricity by Phunk Studio's William Chan and Jackson Tan, holds eleven capsule-like rooms, each painted a single colour and lit with neon signage referencing a song title built around that colour. The second floor, designed by DP Architects, splits between five Origami rooms with folded ceiling geometry and four Pop-Art rooms with backlit, cartoon-style stencils. The top floor, Creature Comforts by fFurious, keeps nine loft rooms in a deliberately playful, almost childlike register — proof the hotel never settles into a single idea of what Little India should look like from the inside, floor to floor.

French Cocotte and a 1920s Façade

Downstairs, French Cocotte carries the same design hand as the Industrial Glam floor above it, built into the same historic shell that gives the hotel its street presence. The building's original 1920s façade stays recognisably itself from Dickson Road, a quiet contrast to the four very different worlds behind it, and the outdoor terrace spaces give guests somewhere neutral to sit that belongs to none of the four floors in particular, a kind of shared ground between four very different design briefs.