A ROOM with a view is what I asked for when booking a stay at the Yotel New York and that is what I got.

Every one of the 669 rooms has one in fact: the Empire State and Chrysler buildings and the Hudson River. As it turned out, I spent little time admiring the sights. The 21st-century interior was far too entertaining.

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The façade of Yotel is a huge vertical slab of sculptural honeycomb, interconnecting lozenges (aping the Yotel logo) and brazenly illuminated purple.
It is a Belisha beacon, bathing a somewhat desolate and gritty stretch of 10th Avenue in delicate hues of mauve, lavender and lilac.

On a different hotel such lighting might suggest rooms by the half hour. Ironic, since the truncated stay is very much the ethos of the Yotel brand with slots of as little as four hours available at its three airport branches at Amsterdam Schiphol, Gatwick and Heathrow.

Here in the centre of New York you are expected to stay the full night. Frankly, why would you want to cut it short?
The lobby is akin to an Apple Store given a retro refit by Stanley Kubrick straight from filming 2001:
A Space Odyssey. It is a vast open (and empty) expanse with three lifts. On one side is a bank of discreet supercomputer check-in screens. Put your name and booking reference in and out pops your room key. On the other side is an enormous cybernetic robotic arm: Yobot.

Caged in a big glass box, this 59ft hydraulic arm, fresh from a car assembly plant, looks rather menacing until its purpose becomes clear. Yobot handles the left luggage. Insert your suitcase through a hole and hey presto, it has it up and stacked in a wall of baggage before you know it.

The brainchild of Simon Woodroffe, founder of the Japanese Yo! Sushi restaurants, and Gerard Greene, New York is the fourth and most ambitious hotel in the chain. Greene hopes to secure the architectural gem, that is the former TWA Saarinen building at New York's JFK airport, as his fifth property.

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"I went to sleep thinking how one could make the idea of a Japanese capsule hotel acceptable in the West, " says Woodroffe. "The solution is something like a BA cabin. We have used the design language of airlines, how to make the best of a very small space and some of the technology of luxury yachts to create our cabin system.

"It's a proper room and bed with all the facilities you would expect in a four-star hotel room but miniaturised."
With rooms starting at just ?3, it seems a small price to pay to experience such innovative, world-class design.

THE RESULTS in my premium cabin, the standard, are more than fit for purpose, a bed that "shape shifts" (well, retracts 2ft) to turn into a lounge mode, a "techno wall" with a flat-screen TV and in-room entertainment system, free WiFi, an iPod docking station and multiple power outlets next to hollowed-out nooks for all my gizmos. The sleek bathroom is by the window rather than the door to maximise use of space.
The powerful, walk-in monsoon shower clears my groggy head.

There are also 18 First Class cabins (with terraces and hot tubs) and three VIP Cabin Suites with outdoor fireplaces, revolving circular beds and pool tables.
At Mission Control (concierge desk) on the fourth floor the staff, clad in grey and purple suits, are happy to give a human touch to the alien surroundings. The Green lounge is an area with high-backed wraparound green leather sofas.

There is also the Club lounge, an airport-style bar surrounded by glass cabins where guests can hold meetings and parties.
At 10pm it transforms into a nightclub. The restaurant, DohYO, named after a sumo wrestling ring, has tables and seats sunk into a wooden platform.
After the last diners have gone the tables retract on hydraulics to create a performance/dance space. The Richard Sandoval restaurant is an Asian-Mexican fusion serving up such dishes as pork belly tacos, wagyu beef brisket and tuna-mango ceviche.

Perhaps the biggest draw for locals will be the huge outdoor terrace. At 4,000sq ft it is the city's largest hotel balcony and features inflatable cabañas, fire pits, picnic tables, wood-burning ovens and amazing Manhattan views.

Two blocks to the west is the Hudson River Park and the sun silhouetting the tiny forms of joggers and boarders whizzing along the pathways. Two blocks to the east the neon-fantasia of Times Square, Broadway and still further the Chrysler Building.
Yotel looks good inside and out.

GETTING THERE
Virgin Holidays (0844 557 3859/virginholidays.co.uk) offers three nights in New York at the Yotel from £765pp (two sharing), room only. Price includes return flights from Heathrow and transfers. For departure August 30, 2011.
NYC & Company: 020 7367 0934/nycgo.com