Pop up hotel
TEAM: Paola Zatti, Ettore Santi – Politecnico di Milano
Which is moving: people or architecture?
The concept of Pop-Up Hotel refers to a temporary market request, especially during events like Expos or Olympic Games. For this reason it is impossible to design not considering the whole economy of a conventional intervention. It is clear that this typology needs a clever system, easy and quick to move and build up, adaptable to many contextual situations, however it has also to be comfortable and appealing in its image.
The idea calls for the concept of “pragmatism”, and aims to consider different factors: a characterized image, a quick assembling/disassembling system, a high transportation ratio, plan adaptability and comfort of living spaces.
The system is composed by one element replicated as a brick and developed in different ways for each function to create the hotel structure. Every module arrives finished on site and just needs to be bolt. The main idea is to avoid wasting of space during transportation (3 rooms/camion) therefore the room module has a sliding system that duplicates the interior space directly on site. The space to locate the sliding part is provided by switching floor by floor the modules while assembling. Every module includes already the horizontal circulation, while the vertical is solved into special blocks that are modules as well. This solution provides flexibility in plan and allows to model the building reaching any shape needed to meet the site features.
The single module is therefore composed by two different elements: the structural box using a steel column-beam structure, completed with corrugated steel sandwich panels. This technology gives the stiffness to easily overlay the modules till four floors.
On the other hand the sliding box, containing the bed, is made with a cross laminated timber structure that, working with structural walls, provides the rigidity to the moving element. The two boxes together compose the room space; then there’s a toilet, treated with the typology of the wet-room, and a small loggia, that works as a sunscreen and increases the spatial/environmental quality. Considering the short ammount of time spent by the guest in the room and that the room doesn’t need more than the minimum space, cheapness and speed in transportation are elements necessary to make the whole system work.
Other modules for services are used at the ground floor and can be accessible also from the city. For example there are two bar/kitchen modules that follow the same logics of the room extending the wood part but their flooring is included in the foundation block.
It is possible to open the whole amount of rooms immediately during the assembling or later, considering the request and in front of the client when he opens the room. This generates a moving facade that can change every time somebody leaves the room or enters.