Lying on the Surface

TEAM: Lorenzo Sacchi, Angelo Sertorelli, Riccardo Scarvaci, Giacomo Schiesaro – Politecnico di Milano

Sleeping as a geographical element

Progress allowes, or obligates, a growing number of people to move, making for a bigger demand of sleeping facilities around the world. The more people travel, the more specific are the needs that hotels must satisfy, thus originating different variations of this typology.

The main service, though, remains providing a place to sleep in, independently of geographical location and of user target.

The differences between these types of structures are the extra services they offer, and the variations stem from the will to reach other segments of users.

The Hotel embraces all of these considerations and consists on a single and uniform sleeping service: The Hotel spreads all over the planet, becoming a worldwide accommodation facility. The Room is scattered globally, sleeping takes over geographical space. Its diffusion creates the possibility of sleeping everywhere in the world.

The world and its history are accessible from every point of the Cartesian grid, absorbing all extra services and removing the need to provide any specific service in any specific place. The Door becomes the symbol of the limit of the sleeping space, separation between private and public.

Zizzz Functional

TEAM: Emilia Karwowska, Kamila Waszkowiak – Wrocław University of Technology

HOTEL ON DEMAND

If you rent a hotel room, you pay for renting some amount of space for 24h/day, even if you stay there only 6 hours. The cost and standard is strictly connected with the distance to the city center and the most important tourist hotspots. When you visit a new city or country, you want to be most mobile – you want to do sightseeing, feel the atmosphere of the place. You want to be everywhere and see everything. And you never know, where you would finish your day.

Let’s assume the whole city is our hotel – with rooms all around it.

Today most services are available on demand with delivery. Doesn’t matter if it is a pizza, movie, hairdresser appointment or shopping – all this things are available to order with a few clicks on your mobile phone. Basic role of a hotel is providing a place to sleep. For us, providing place to sleep is a service too. Why not treat it like something that can be delivered to the customer?

Modern technology gives us solutions to make it possible.

Imagine you have just finished a great party in the downtown of the city you are currently visiting. Usually you would need to travel to the suburbs to sleep – or pay crazy amount of money to do it in the city centre. So let’s invert it and let your hotel room come to you. It is small (what else would you need?), cheap (because you pay only for time spent in it), really quick (the first nearest room would appear as soon as possible) and easy to order (via comfortable phone app).

We present you Zizzz – hotel on demand. Click a button on your phone and the nearest driverless mobile bed will find you. It is suited for the place you are visiting – so it could be rendered as a car, but could be also a plane, drone or a yellow submarine – the possibilities are countless. Just tell it when and where you want to wake up and your hotel will guide you while you are resting. Pay only for the time spent and distance covered, no more, no less.
Simple.

One-Person Hotel

TEAM: Sara Camponez, Hugo Sobrosa – FAUP

A hotel is more a setting than an actual building.

That key to your room… not really your key now, is it? As you open the door you notice little things that were put in place to insinuate nothing has been touched yet, like the pristine bed sheets or the unopened bag of soap. There’s a silent mise- en-scène that you are happy to ignore so as to fully experience this exciting new room (much like someone going to the theatre). The unpleasant truth, as we all know, is that lots of people have been there before.

The hotel is basically staging the cosy spaces you hope to spend your night at. Extra services may be provided such as breakfast, dry-cleaning or gym; anything that will make you feel at home (better than home!). Bottom line is: the fancier the hotel, the bigger the ILLUSION. Meanwhile, at the backstage, a crew of people is making sure you don’t see all the mess.

Indeed, sleeping in a hotel is never a lonesome experience, whether you’re referring to the HOTEL’S STAFF or the other CLIENTS. You might not see them, but you hear them vaguely…

This ONE-PERSON HOTEL experience is an INSTALLATION planned to remind what makes a simple (ever so forgotten) hotel.

We took the main elements that, when all put together, remind us of a hotel: the hotel sign, the lobby, the elevator, the corridor and the room (only ONE room). Then, we created a layout for applying those elements to virtually any building in the world although, in this case, we used Mies Van der Rohe’s Lake Shore Drive to test our installation. The idea is to contaminate part of a building with those devices (preferably two floors) and create a setting for a hotel, without compromising whichever other activities the building may shelter (such as offices, apartments, shops, etc).

We’ll need a couple of ACTORS to guide the client through this installation: a concierge that will book the room and somebody who will actually clean it after each client leaves the installation, so that it will be ready to be used by the next visitor. ONE ROOM, ONE CLIENT at a time.

Once inside, the client can circulate normally. He might CROSS SOMEBODY in the elevator or HEAR PEOPLE talking in the upper floors. But this will not shatter the illusion that he’s in a packed-full regular hotel. In fact, it will probably enforce it, because THE BUILDING WILL TRULY BE CROWDED.

Nothing will be hidden; we’ll simply use the SETTING to amplify the illusion. A leaflet will be on display in the bedroom and – as leaflets in art galleries often do – it will contain all the information concerning this installation, its purpose and the background concept.

By making the ONE-PERSON HOTEL applicable to different buildings, we were able to detach the morphology from the meaning and enhance the feelings hotels leave in all of us.

Awakening

TEAM: Patricia Perez, Eduardo Micha, Fabio Correa, Gabriel Merino, Christian Rodrigez – ARQMOV WORKSHOP

Awakening, The Spiritual Rehab Cocoon.
The project is located in the Sian Ka’an natural reserve, one of the last remaining carbon-capturing forests and the second largest coral reef in the world. The reserve facilitates eco-tourism and environmental thinking along a section of the Caribbean coast within a Mayan area of Mexico.

The site for this project is divided in two, one part having views to the sea and the other being on the shore of a lagoon. This situation offers two prospects within the one complex, separated only by a road.

The client’s concept is about inviting the users to take a unique, introspective journey where they can experience, as the name suggests, an awakening to a new, regenerated self, whereby the experience of lodging becomes integrated into the natural environment. The complex promotes healthy eating and local gastronomy as well as activities that will strenghten the mind, body and spirit. It encourages a connection with nature, the community and with the visitors themselves and fosters consciousness in tourism.

The design concept emulates the forms of natural shelters: the nest, the burrow, the cave, the shell, the cocoon; geometry as the basis for the analysis and creation of the universe, nature and reason. The organic profile of these shelters became a reference to develop the architectural elements that form this complex. The area of contact with the site is minimal, so as to reduce the impact on the site and to protect its natural vegetation, most of which is endangered.

The complex comprises 12 cocoon-shaped modules which function as living spaces, organised around a very simple plan: living and sleeping areas plus facilities. The geometry of this object is realised by a series of bamboo curves revolving around a central axis in the manner of a spinning top. At the main level, that is, 3 metres above ground, its diameter is 5 metres, while the base at ground level has a diameter of 1 metre. On the upper level and above the mezzanine, rainwater is collected and stored for household consumption, this reduces the demand for drinking water, difficult to supply to this area. These units are connected by means of vertical elements and suspension bridges.

The cocoon has been conceptualised as a prototype, a repeatable object that can be installed anywhere. It can, if required, be transferred to another place without leaving an imprint on the land.

The amenities programme is complemented by several elements which guide the interpretation of the project: the form of the reception area is reminiscent of a hummingbird nest, the restaurant’s is a sea snail, while the structure that contains the multiple use room emulates a tortoise shell and the pool bears the form and texture of an open bird nest. The facilities are resolved within small geometrical modules.

Power is supplied by means of wind turbines, wastewater treatment plants and solar panels. The system achieves a complete water cycle with no disposal into
the aquifer. Waste management envisages crops growing on the land and protection of mangrove swamps.

UNO

TEAM: Stefano De Oliveira Figueiredo, Flavio Facchini – Accademia di Architettura di Mendrsio

Have you ever seen an entire city become a hotel?

Our idea is to transform the obslete and static idea of hotels, and make it a dinamyc element within the City. To develop this idea we explode the current typology of hotels and we took the basic part of it: the room.

The room is all that we need; a little cell where we can live during our stay.

The current position of hotels usually restrict our movements and interaction with the City, because we have to start and end our day all the time in the same position. To solve this problem and achieve our concept idea, we make this cells movable. In order to our technology development we took ‘drones’ and we employ it to move our cells inside the city. How we can do it? Simple: with one device application we can decide where to move our room-cell! Today is very easy connect our devices to internet, we belive that in the future the internet connection will be a rule. So this allows us to choise – with only one finger – where we want to sleep!

The room-cell provides all the facilities that we need: bed, shower, wc, and a little closet.
The design was develop to assemble multiple cells, so they can form small hotel sites and locate more than one room-cell in a single spot. Cells can fit unused City spaces and permit a simple storage, for example: In periods of low turists flow.

With this simple idea we don’t have to spend a lot of time choosing the best located hotel: the City will become our hotel!

The Voyagers Lodge

TEAM: Joy Younan, Rachid Jalloul

“I just arrived and I want to sleep… somewhere”

Bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living, dining… and a voyager’s lodge. New times call for new functions. This is a 21st century typology. Every residential apartment today should be equipped with a lodge for a traveler or city wanderer.

Just like an attic for storage, a lodge for a traveler.
“On a building I see a bed icon lighting green… a vacant lodge”
The lodge is a convertible room. Presented are two possible types: Type 1: 5 by 6 meters completely isolatable from the residents’ quarter:

Architecturally autonomous:
Protruding out of the apartment, 60 cm lower in level
Separable from its interior via sound proof sliding panels
Has a separate entrance. The occupant does not have to pass through the apartment to access the lodge.

Programmatically independent, contains:
Bed
Shower
WC
Kitchenette
Storageunits
Bicycle
Spiral staircase that can lead to the lodge of the apartment above incase it exists

All of the functions mentioned above are embedded in a 135cm service-wall-closet, with the bed being retractable.

Once the lodge is unoccupied, it can be joined with the rest of the apartment. The bed can be retracted to become a shelf, functions in the service wall are concealed via shutters.

Type 2: 5 by 6 meters including a 2 by 5, isolatable – but not completely – from the residents’ quarter:

Architecturally accentuated:

Overlapping with the apartment. Elevated by 60cm.
Separable from the rest of the interior via soundproof sliding panels o Accessible via its balcony
Programmatically dependent, contains: o Bed
Bathtub
WC
Storage unit
All of the functions mentioned above are embedded in a 30 to 40cm thick service-slab.

Once the lodge is unoccupied , it can be reclaimed to the apartment. The functions in the service- slab can be concealed via shutters as if nothing was there.

The two types or more can be joined in a building with common spaces linking them to create a traveler’s/voyager’s environment.

Fundamentally, a hotel is a typology that emerged out of the concept of hospitality and it created a business out of it.

The Voyager’s Lodge is a project that revisits the concept of hospitality and suggests a new typology. How the building looks like is not as important as the feature itself, for it can become an inseparable feature and requirement of apartment buildings to be constructed.

Slowly, when this typology spreads – internationally – hosting can become a worldly custom and sleeping in strange land can become much more accessible.

With that being said
Notions such as booking,
Checking in
And even paying can slowly fade away, For wherever anyone trots,
There is a place to stay

ATHUS

TEAM: Alexander Tomasik 

We’re living in an age were technology can free us from the monotony of the commute and by doing so give us the most precious thing of all, which is time. ATHUS, or Autonomous Terrestrial Hotel Utilities Service, of which provides customers with sleeping accommodations as well as a myriad of other services. The ATHUS would pick customers up at their location via a cell application and transport them to their destination automatically, giving them time to do other things other than driving, and providing them with a mobile habitat that allows for sleeping, work and relaxation. Once the destination is reached, depending upon where that is, the occupant can exit the vehicle via the door directly to a retail shop, conference center or a more long term hotel that includes all the amenities.

ATHUS, provides the customer with connivence and safety via the marvels of modern technology, with a blast proof outer shell coated with Line-X, to full 360° awareness for responsive adaptability to the ever changing flow of traffic; ATHUS provides this with the environmental awareness and prowess of fully electric mobility that allows for a comfortable quite ride for the occupant, and plug and play repairs when servicing the vehicles keeping the units safe and reliable continuously and because the living quarters detaches from the motorized bottom, repair and inspection can achieved without any delay to customers.

Each vehicle would be charged by home docking stations when they’re not in use and also by integrated solar cells, located along the top and front of the vehicle, and by fans along the sides of the vehicle that harness oncoming winds to keep onboard batteries topped off. Additionally, there’d be internal airbags that fill the room to keep the occupants of the room safe if there ever were a collision.

The mobile rooms would dock to various buildings that provide customers with the amenities they require and by the architectural suggestion of Corbusier, most buildings would have the ground level designed specifically for the ATHUS’s; allowing them attachment points for their mobile living quarters to be hoisted up to customers corresponding floor. The lift system could be as simple as an up and down lift, depending on the scale and complexity of the building, but on more elaborate projects each lift should be able to more into place latterly, so as to keep the flow of living units free of congestion and provide architects with the ability to scale vertically in their building projects. There’ll also be situations where the ATHUS can back directly to a building, on the ground floor, and deliver their occupant to that establishment and park itself in a spot that’s appropriate or take that time to swap automatically with a fully charged unit. The possibilities are endless with a system such as this; the main thing is that with the advent of driverless vehicles there’ll be the need for new vehicles and new ways of living that utilize the current available technology.

Sleep With

TEAM: Anna Rizou

A neo-­romantic solution to your accommodation
Being hooked on mobile devices and applications on a daily basis, we are living the controversy of ANTI­Social media: a virtual space of socializing
We are feeling more and more lonely, desperately looking for proximity , for contact.

Travelling the world on a backpack, like turtles, pursuing our luck or independancy, no longer feels fulfilling.
Liberated from tabboos, we swipe right or left on people’s faces much more easily than they went to speak to a person at a bar.

Architects are directly concerned, as the much respected models of the great design teachers on anthropometry, ideal proportions and dimensions for living are actually only making things worse for solitude.

However, how can it be that spatial conventions and design artefacts encourage unethical or antisocial prototypes of conduct?
How much longer will business travels be associated with prostitution, sex­tourism be a thing, and why not recycle all these habits in a socially sustainable manner?

What is missing is an infrastructure that will organise and connect meeting people with hosting them. Neo­romance is not dead, and it is not found necessarilly in a proximity radious around you. At times you might have to force yourself to travel and find it, and most definately, spend one way or the other with it.

The space to SleepWith is unique and absolutely personalized and defined by the host, given it is their own personal space. The space to SleepWith is infinite, comes in shapes and sizes, and is not only defined by the destination room, but all the intermediate spaces that got you there: It is the Internet, it is the device you used to browse or chat, the cafeteria where you received your first message, the plane or boat deck that got you to your destination; it is the elevator where you spent your last sweaty and nervous moments before you met your host. It is the bed, sofa you shared with the person you met to SleepWith.

Floating Room

TEAM: Bumjin Kim

Fundamentally different spatial paradigm within the existing office building

In the hotel industry, there is a disparity between luxury and budget hotels. This polarization will only increase in the future. It will mean more travelers will be placed in rooms with inconveniently-sized beds and bathrooms. Under these circumstances, new hotels will increasingly veer towards budget hotels, comparable to what one might see in office sharing.

One possibility is for us to look at the existing infrastructure, especially around this idea of sharing. The most important idea of the “Floating Room” concept is the notion that office space is generally empty at night, and might as well be used. So, in order for this idea to work in a hotel scenario, it should bring issues of sourcing and energy together with thinking on real estate, energy saving, and space sharing overall. The rooftops of office buildings can be converted into publicly accessible new hotels with amazing views and terraces. The common room area of the building can be used regardless of whether it is day or night.

As an idea of physical space for a rooftop hotel, it would mean an area that accommodates many people at the same time, such as the capsule hotel, sleeping box, or nice hostels. The capsule hotel, originally started in Japan, provides cheap and basic overnight accommodation for people with a number of small rooms—one capsule hotel in Tokyo has more than 600 rooms available. In addition, there are small cabins and boxes enabling people to take a nap or get a solid night’s sleep inside of an airport without leaving a terminal. These days, this kind of concept can be seen from London to Moscow, where it is commonly known as a “Sleeping Box.”

A “Floating Room” is located at the rooftop of an office building, using a similar concept. During the day, it serves as a regular office space, but at night, it becomes a nice hotel with spacious accommodations and stunning views. This project does not take into consideration the design of a hotel, but rather it shows a concept of how a new type of hotel might work. New York City was chosen as the ideal testing ground because of its high structural density, and heterogeneity of both building heights and types. It is also one of the most densely populated areas in the world, with numerous office buildings serving as potential candidates. Functionally, this serves two purposes: first, to provide hotel space with self- producing energy on top of the office building. And secondly, it is an energy exchange platform that enables the co-existence of two different programs: that of an office, and that of a hotel. With this project as momentum, this sharing concept can trigger a conversation regarding the opportunity to present new hotel typology.

BELONG

TEAM: Lauro Eduardo Franzé Filho, Anita Carson Urbano, Jorge Lira e Gazel, Igor Dantas – Universidade Julio de Mesquita Filho UNESP

BE ANYWHERE, SLEEP EVERYWHERE
Perhaps this is the most appropriate word to describe the idea behind this project.
When we go to a new city, we may enjoy it`s attractions, but in a certain way we do not belong to it. We face obstacles everywhere, all the time. It is always hard to find the services we need, the right places to go, stay or eat. However, there is one place that tries to gather all this services, the hotel. It receives and treats you in a way you fell part of that place. It might be a cozy hotel that resembles your home, or something luxurious. It might offer you one thousand different services, or just be a place to sleep well.
This project is a part of an interesting idea: What if we could enjoy this kind of feeling not just in this specific place, but in the whole city? What if the city itself were a big and comfortable hotel? It is a fact that technology increased the number of service providers, such as taxi services or living services, like Uber and Airbnb. But all this apps are very specific, offering just one kind of service. It is right there that Belong comes.

It is a digital platform that enables regular people to offer hotel’s services. Thus, all the Belong users will be able to access these services not just in one place, but spread around the city. It starts with simple things, such as someone who wants to make extra money and decides to offer a bathroom that is not being used in their house. And it goes to more complex ideas, such as places to eat, exercise or sleep. Here, the idea of sleeping is not restricted to an act neither to a place.

The access to the platform would be through an app or a website. It would find for you, using a GPS, people offering all kinds of service, such as an appropriate place for a work meeting, or a nice and exclusive place to have breakfast. The best part is that money would be
unnecessary because all the payments would be done through the platform. The entire city is now your hotel.

This project represents no just the idea itself, but all the potentiality it has, revealing all the nonarchitecture behind it. These potentialities will create unprecedented freedom, which will change the way we communicate to cities dramatically. Now we belong to the city and the city belongs to us, being all the services connected to a single virtual space but spread across infinite physical spaces.

This is Belong, the idea of being anywhere, and sleeping everywhere.

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