NICE, FRANCE -- Tucked away in a residential neighbourhood of ochre-shuttered apartment buildings, green parasol pine trees, fuchsia bougainvillea and blue-rinse ladies with tiny black poodles is the new Hi Hotel.

The multiconcept design hotel, which opened this spring, has injected a frisson of electricity into tired old Nice, as well as into the flagging design-hotel scene.

Walk through the Star Trek-like electronic doors of the 1930s building -- designed by Matali Crasset, a protégée of Philippe Starck -- into a lobby with raspberry-coloured concrete floors, and inhale the aroma of mandarin blossoms wafting through the air. Rhythmic French music plays quietly in the background

People mingle. Here comes the receptionist, all dressed in black. She ducks behind a tiny pulpit in the corner. There is no reception desk. Hi is based on democratic principles, says its owner, Patrick Elouarghi. "No them and us."

Ambiance

The Hi feels convivial, like a playful design factory. With the communal banquettes and the constant but low-decibel rhythm-heavy French music playing, the lobby has a hip nightclub feel. In fact, once a week, DJs spin records at Hi bar.

If you need a break from the subdued party atmosphere, head for Hi's excellent basement, Hammam, or to the rooftop swimming pool. Shaped like a terra cotta pot, it offers sweeping vistas of the sea, the Alps Maritimes, and the cupolas and rooftops of Nice.

Design

The multicoloured tones of the hotel jibe perfectly with the clear light and intense blue skies of the Côte d'Azur. Crasset worked as Starck's right-hand woman for many years and has gleaned the best qualities of the French guru of design. Her work is full of ideas, sometimes nifty, sometimes difficult, but ideas nonetheless.

Her primary idea -- wanting to "take off the walls" and break up preconceived notions of space -- results in a great sense of fun. Her closet-less rooms and door-less toilets on pedestals, however, might make some feel that the fun is at the expense of guests.

Clientele

The Hi's patrons include Parisians who are buying into the huge amount of hype the hotel has generated in French style circles, and quite a few Londoners, in part because of the new no-frills airline phenomenon, which offers spare-change-priced flights from London to Nice and which has helped to make this formerly old-news Riviera city a magnet for hip mini-breakers.

A fair number of locals also use the bar as a breakfast meeting point or drop in for a late-night drink in the citrus-coloured bar. But mostly the clients could be described as design anthropologists, who don't mind showering in transparent Plexiglas cubes in the middle of the room.

Rooms

There are 38 rooms for the nine different design concepts, all expressing the main theme: displacing preconceived notions about a hotel. For example, the bed in one room might be as high as a table; in another it is a sunken mat on the floor.

Monospace is the most basic room, the building block of Crasset's design. Its fire-engine-red walls and the giant picture window looking into the bathroom set the daring tone.

In the Up and Down, the concept is slicing a room horizontally rather than vertically. The mattress is on the floor, and chestnut wicker shelving runs the width of the room at eye level.

Indoor Terrace has an interior garden theme: The bed lies on a teak platform built over a cobalt-blue floor. At the foot of the bed, a row of bamboo trees serves as a living-room divider, separating the bed from the glass-walled shower and a toilet in a wooden hut.

Techno Corner is a like a private auditorium, with a sliding two-sided home cinema screen that allows you to watch videos in bed or bath.

The pristine White and White is a purist's dream. It includes a bed elevated to table height and two square Carrara marble sinks servings as its headboard. Next to the bed is a four-poster bathtub with a lilac-coloured roof. A white spiral staircase in the room leads up to a private roof garden and Jacuzzi. Soft violet-coloured lighting transforms the room from operating-theatre cold to futuristic playpen.

The Strate rooms have a private terrace overlooking the hotel's courtyard garden/bar. Modular cushions tucked under the stairs of the purple Plexiglas toilet stall can be hauled onto the terrace. The shower, similarly encased in yellow Plexiglas, also sits atop stairs, which you have to climb like an Egyptian cat.

In case a friend arrives unexpectedly at your door, all rooms come with a Crasset design known as the "When Jim comes to Paris," a futon-style rollup with built-in light and alarm clock, which she created for her Paris apartment for a visiting mate.

The Hi, by the way, is named for a Japanese fish, one of which swims around in a bowl in each room.

Service

The "breaking down of divisions" concept extends to the staff-client dynamic. Staff is encouraged to mingle about the spaces as the guests do, freed of the confines of a polarizing reception desk. The no-room-service policy plays into that idea, too: Guests help themselves 24/7 to snacks at Hi Food.

Neither is there a minibar in the rooms. Mini champagne bottles, water and juice are available through dispensing machines on each floor.

Smack in the middle of the hotel lobby are two interface chairs with laptop and high-speed connections, a welcome feature.

Staff is also on hand, friendly and helpful, which doesn't go unnoticed in the cold-blooded design-hotel world.

Food and drink

The self-serve restaurant known as Hi Food is located just off the Happy Bar, whose centrepiece is a long, communal raspberry, lime and turquoise-coloured table. Hi Food, the staff say, is a laboratory of ideas, although in presentation rather than in menu.

Guests choose light, upmarket and locally inspired dishes served in glass jars lined up on futuristic stainless steel shelves.

You can take the jars of tomato basil mousse, tartare of haddock or Thai noodles to the table at the Happy Bar, the garden courtyard, your room, the beach or the rooftop pool.

Breakfast is also a self-serve affair, and it's fun. Guests are let loose amid the Hi Bar's stainless-steel shelves to make their own cappuccino, squeeze their own juice, choose from delicious croissants, pains au chocolat, healthy yogurts and violet-flower jam.

Things to do

Nice's famously pebbly beach is a few hundred metres from the hotel. Stroll along the Promenade des Anglais.

Try Nice specialties at the Cours Saleya, the flower and fruit market in the old town: socca, a chickpea pancake; tourte de blette, an odd but delicious salty-sweet quiche of Swiss chard, pine nuts and icing sugar; courgette flower fritters; and lavender, thyme or jasmine flavoured ice cream at Fenocchio in Vieux Nice's Baroque Place Rossetti.

The colour-drenched Matisse museum sits above the hills in the city's posh Cimiez quarter.

Explore the towns along the coast, notably yachty Antibes; Euro-trashy Monaco; and quaint Villefranche.

Information

Hi Hotel: 3 avenue des Fleurs, Nice; phone: 33 (4) 97 07 26 26; e-mail: hi@hi-hotel.net; or visit the Web site at http://www.hi-hotel.net.

Rooms start at around $230 a night.