Boutique Hotel

Design : ALL ARCHITECTURE

Year: 2021

Location: Heraklion - Crete

Area: 500m2
Collaborators: Eleni Antoniadou & Fanis Georgiadis Students of Architecture

The brief involved the renovation of a downtown 60's small appartment building in downtown Heraklion Crete to be converted into a boutique hotel. The building is marked by a colorful graffitti mural added a few years ago. The proposal aims to preserve the "landmark" quality of the graffitti gesture into a more "solid" architectural proposal that confronts aesthetic, functional and bioclimatic issues.

Colorful "prisms"

In this proposal the facades are lined with panels that carry a large "mural" of triangular pixel patterns in tones that move from warm to cold colors.
It creates a strong visual impression and an interesting "illusion" that these are prismatic panels. Using a simple manufacturing approach, an impressive result is achieved through color.
The same patterns can be rendered indoors, possibly by choosing one palette per room, and possibly used as three-dimensional prismatic elements in the space. The railings are proposed to be made of colored triplex glass.

Alternatively, a more abstract configuration of colored sufaces "extrudes" parts of the facade creating a quirky three dimensional graffiti.

Blinds - approach to monochrome

The proposal employs a canvas of panels that cover the bay window, form new solid surfaces on the balustrades and create fixed or movable blinds on the facades.
The surface of the bay window is extended inside the balconies to form recesses where the shading blinds of the rooms are drawn and at the same time a green vertical zone with climbing plants is formed on each floor.
The proposal moves in monochromatic tones, but the panels could alternatively be colored or even have wood paneling on the inner side. Accordingly, the same idea of double-faced panels could also be applied to the configuration of the interior spaces.

Cubist approach with color references to tradition

In this solution, a second "skin" is proposed , with a sequence of surfaces that wrap the building and create new geometries. Volumes and voids are arranged in a new way, and the green element is introduced by creating planters in selected places on balconies and roofs. The surfaces make small recesses creating photo shadows.
The basic choice of colors refers to traditional colors (ceramics, architecture), but in an unexpected and modern iconography. The very warm and intense colors distinguish the building from the uniformity of the urban landscape and recall memories of the older houses with courtyards.

Shade- Sail
In this proposal, a new "veil" covers the building by the means of vertical "saili shades . The visual impression of the recess of the exteriors is softened and a material that "converses" with light and air is introduced with the slight movement of the shades and the shading on the walls of the facades and on the floors of the exteriors.
Shades also add height to the building through their proportions. The motifs of "braid", or sails (as one sees them), conjure up images of the living tradition of Crete told with a fresh modern story or seen with a fresh modern eye.
The constructions are based on inox elements that are placed on the ceiling and on the side of the exterior plate.
The railings are proposed to be replaced by simple glass surfaces or inox wire ropes.
The same sails can give structures inside (shop window). The solution can be applied regardless of whether the building will have a thermal facade.

Fluids. Organic color layers

Successive layers of color are proposed that are either arranged parallel to the face (front view) or cross it vertically (side view). These surfaces enliven the facades in a particularly original way by dynamically introducing color and the element of movement, while at the same time forming a single gesture throughout, accentuating the building's volume. With the new constructions that develop in the zones on the borders with the neighboring buildings, the building is "cut off" from its neighbors and stands out in a dynamic and original way.
The balustrades are proposed to be replaced by simple triplex glass surfaces.
The same logic extends to the ground floor level, creating an impressive relief at the entrance of the store.
The lateral, relatively "invisible" until now, face of the building is perceived through the juxtaposition of the vertical multi-colored panels that "descend" like flows of color on the surface of the face, also marking the entrance to the hotel.
The surfaces "enter" the interior by creating curtains and shaping the interior of the shop and rooms.