Marcel Breuer’s Pirelli Tire Building, a beacon of Brutalist architecture in the United States, is being reimagined as a hotel by development company Becker and Becker. After being abandoned for years, the structure was sold to architect and developer Bruce Redman Becker in 2020 with plans to transform it into a sustainable 165-room hotel. The sculptural concrete structure aims to be a model for passive design hotels using its unique architectural features and innovative adaptive reuse techniques.
Located on a main north-south highway in New Haven, Connecticut, the building was first created for a tire manufacturer, the Armstrong Rubber Company, in 1970. After several years, the tire company was surrounded with controversy, which caused them to gradually abandon the building. Towards the early 2000's, the lower part of the building was demolished and replaced with a car parking lot, regardless of people's protests against it.
Throughout its architecture and interior design, Breuer’s building features an interplay of negative spaces and voids. In terms of interior, the voids reduce noise caused by the research labs at the lower floors. The negative spaces on the façade, which were created from pre-cast concrete panels, offer shade and protection from the sun, and ornament the building with a dynamic visual.
With hopes of being the first Passive House certified Hotel in the United States, the "certified historic" rehabilitation and adaptive re-use of the building will become a 165-room boutique hotel with a restaurant, gallery, and meeting rooms, all designed according to LEED Platinum certification criteria. Solar panels on the rooftop and parking canopies will provide 100% of electricity for lighting, heating, and cooling, and the project will be built using recycled and locally sourced material.
Construction began in summer of 2020 and is expected to be complete in the first quarter of 2022.
