America’s raciest hotel chain has turned a boring British office block into an Austin Powers-style crash pad complete with retro reception, leftie library – and rooftop baths. Groovy baby!

When the clerks of Camden’s highways department were issuing parking fines from their gloomy office in the 1970s, little can they have imagined that jet-setting hipsters would one day be supping cocktails in the public library below them before taking an al fresco dip up on the roof. Maligned for years as the concrete “egg box” of Euston Road, the old council headquarters have been reborn as the glamorous Standard Hotel, the first outpost of the risque boutique chain outside the US.

“People thought we were crazy to suggest open-air bathtubs in London,” says Shawn Hausman, the Los Angeles-based designer behind the Standard’s flamboyant interiors, who started out creating film sets for Saturday Night Fever. “But I think it’s always nice to have a bath outside, even in the rain.”