Lower East Side Hotel / Office for Design and Architecture
Located in the Bowery, the Lower East Side Hotel designed by the Office for Design and Architecture will feature minimalistic interiors to allow the “guests to use their personal aesthetic as an impromptu installation”. By designing tempered and laminated interior cylinders for the shower, toilet and closet, and using stark colors teamed with expansive city views, the small rooms seem larger than their dimensions.
More about the hotel after the break.
The concept for entire building grew from the inside out as the architects’ primary concern was how to make a 10 foot 6 inch wide room feel larger than its tight confinement. In such a small space, the “typical bathroom encasement” had to be re-thought, for the room just did not have the capacity to provide adequate space for a standard bathroom.
“With the skin of the bathroom removed, the guts of the fixtures were exposed and celebrated. The guest could now experience the entire room from the door threshold,” explained the architects.
To make the rooms appear larger from the exterior, “an accordion perimeter wall was shaped from the interior…Careful study was given the amount of angle the façade could take at the building line before it would be considered floor area,” explained the architects.
room plan
room interior detail
DATA
Hotel/Restaurant Use
90,000 Square Feet
220 Guest rooms
Banquet hall
2 Restaurants
4,000SF plaza
Great!
Too bad the lower east side is ruined by all of these hypermodern highrises that have no respect for original character of the neighborhood. Can’t anyone design something that bridges the gap and mixes the existing textures with modern comfort in a way to highlight the beauty of both? I love modernity as much as the next stiff in a suit, but this location just doesn’t seem right for all that?
Nope. Just more more glass formfinding from the avant-blargh.
well
what do you want? a neoneoneoneoneoclassicist hotel? or better a neocavern?
I agree. The LES is becoming a disaster. The new structures are in need of some form of common unity. The Tschumi building is one example.
An interesting solution for space saving. Could you please explain to me why there was such a need to save space in the first place? why are they so scared of creating more floor area?
The privacy of these rooms also concern me, I lived for a couple months in a 2m x 3m room in Korea, I got used to it, but it also had a transparent bathroom and if I ever had anyone over to visit it became very awkward if one had to use the facilities.
bathroom concept only works if all residents look like her.
诡异的设计
在淋浴间洗澡会是什么样的感觉？
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Spaces in NY are not rented/prices per square foot but by square inch, minimizing space is a critical thing that most people do not have the luxury of ignoring.
As for the design, I like the accordion curtain wall, but I wonder if it takes away some of the view. You are not able, for example, to look down at the sidewalk, it keeps you away from the surface of the window. (Maybe they save money on all the windex they don’t have to use?? Since no one has their hands all over the glass??).
The Bathrooms are something else.. I am shocked that they chose a completely transparent glass… it does not look like a two person shower, in fact it looks like one person would feel claustrophobic, so even if you were married someone would be unavoidably watching you shower.. they could at least place non transparent or less transparent strips in areas you would rather have hidden, even as a tease. I wouldn’t want to stay there… not unless I was alone.
Oh and it says that “minimalistic interiors to allow the “guests to use their personal aesthetic as an impromptu installation”. Where would these “touches” be allowed? A hotel, is by nature, a non place. It seems by excluding an identity (which is also an identity, sure) does not make a hotel room any more personal than one that supposes the character of the establishment. I am not saying that a minimalist identity is not an identity, but that they can not argue this is for the sake of allowing a “personal aesthetic” for the guest. I call BS.
honestly the amount of nonsense which is passed off as a “concept” is staggering.
I don’t understand this bad architects trying to be good architects, if you look at their website is made of bs project not one project could be considered good but the best part is that they think is great to even mentioned they were trained at Perkin Eastman or whoever they are, now arch daily let’s keep the integrity and not publish this kind of amateur half post modern half I don’t know what to do work
there are plenty of good architects out there that could benefit from the spotlight certainly not this one
Really bad judgment from the Editor!
Peter,
I understand that you might not like a particular work, but we try to keep a wide spectrum of works that have something to say. For example, and as some commenters have noticed, this hotel is an exercise on how to get the most rooms with a small footprint, maximizing the earnings. This idea alone has generated this debate. And at the end, debate is what helps the profession to evolve, not just praising fantastic buildings.
I wonder what our readers from Japan have to say about this.
ODA is currently finishing another building in NY that we are going to feature in a few months (15 Union Square).
you mean the building by Perkin Eastman???
In years to come ,I think more and more projects will have to consider this kind of room and minimizing their footprints.In a light of recent recession people should start thinking will they be possible to afford all those fancy big houses once they loose their jobs.
Does it really matter where they trained? I thought the discussion was about how the architecture succeeds and how it does not?
BTW since when did pedigree or matriculation actually matter? Tadao Ando and Frank Lloyd Wright never even received architectural degrees to pursue their own practices. Oh, you should take a gander at the very first housing projects produced by Charles Eames–American pseudo-colonial suburban homes. No sexy LA Case Houses to be seen then.
I also see nothing wrong with having conceptual projects on a firm’s website. Even Leon Battista Alberti wrote his books on architecture long before he built anything, and he had no renderings to show his Clients or Contractor… just words. I think it clearly demonstrates that he was thinking critically about the architecture.
Do they really save space – if you look at the plan, the “bathroom area” takes up 75 sqft (7’6″ by 10′). That is enough for a decent conventional bathroom with privacy and a bath. There are European manufacturers who produce bathroom pods (shower/basin/wc) for budget hotels that occupy about 20 sqft (~ 3′ by 6′), so why not use one of those with a more expensive finish and components?
The battle is to efficiently use space while not compromising luxury. The prominence of transparency is meant to create a room that feels large and luxurious while actually being more efficient than its larger counterpart. This is not a budget hotel, so for them to find that balance I can understand the use of this particular design, although I strongly think it needs a few revisions to create some privacy for all parties. [as I said before, use of material, or differentiation in glass, could have taken this project a long way]
Although, there is a TON of space for the toilet! Couldn’t they have allowed that space for a larger shower?? or, well, anything else?
What is the sense of these diagonally-standing windows? Nothing as functionless formalism.
interesting interior concept, it should work for a hip hotel operator. The exterior facade with sloping glass will get very dirty in urban area and will be hard to maintain.
Great interior design wise. I like this tube like shower, sink and wardrobe. Presentation wise, not much life there, too flat, too boring. You need some excitement, a spark, technology feel to present such a project. Thanks, Lumiges
for small and clever see this hotel-room:
http://www.citizenm.com/new-hotel-room-technology.php
I love it–am ready to come stay–when will it be ready???
9:42 PM Jul 7th
“With the skin of the bathroom removed, the guts of the fixtures were exposed and celebrated. #interior #architecture http://bit.ly/eZHcW