One of the first guests to stay in the wood-lined boat was the architect himself, who was excited both by the project and the design process.
If the Waldorf doesn't appeal, stay in an architect-designed boat, perched on the edge of a roof overlooking the Thames.
For nonmarine designers drawn by the fantasy side of luxury yachting, even a partnership with the best naval architects and boat builders is no longer a guarantee of success.
Over a four-year period, naval architects, master boat builders and hundreds of volunteers designed and constructed the 37.5-ton Lois McClure based on archaeological reports and underwater inspections of two canal boats that had sunk in Burlington's harbor in the late 1880's.
For a decade now, historians, architects, carpenters, boat builders, craftsmen and blacksmiths have lovingly — if slowly — sought to recreate the Hermione, the 145-foot, 32-gun, three-masted frigate that in 1780 carried a young French nobleman known as the Marquis de Lafayette on a 38-day voyage to Boston.
The borough engineer Sidney Little had the vision of a concrete city, a marine metropolis, stretching from Hastings to Bexhill, with the boat-building of architects Kenneth Dalgleish and Roger Pullen as the flagship.
Three past winners of Building Design's Young Architect of the Year award feature on the list, including Hall McKnight, mid-listed for the 2013 Stirling Prize for their MAC arts venue in Belfast, and David Kohn, architect of the boat-shaped hotel perched atop the Southbank Centre.
A boat designed by a big-name architect will often hold its price better, even though the design makes up only 4% to 10% of the original cost of a boat.
On the yacht side, the customer will go to a naval architect first; the way the boat looks is very important.
Germán Frers, a naval architect in Argentina who designed the boat, and about 700 others for wealthy clients worldwide, said he followed the wishes of Mr. Kozlowski.
