A roadside Hotel is a place where to leave the stress and hecticness of the journey behind. The place in which to feel calm, safe and comfortable in order to get the longed for rest. Ideally, the place in which one forgets about the road, the traffic, the shops or the people in the shopping mall. Usually, guests arrive late in the evening and leave early in the morning . Those few hours are devoted to resting and enjoying in a simple and uncomplicated way. Guests are not out for discoveries, they want a friendly and open environment in which they individually or collectively can simply lean back. For that they essentially need 3 spaces:
A generous lobby in order to be able to sit down and chat about the past day and plan the upcoming one. A space with a tempered ambience, in a mediterranian climate, usually fresh and shadowy. A space secluded from the outside in order not to get constantly reminded of the road.
A café in which to enjoy an uncomplicated dinner, an evening cocktail with friends and family or a morning breakfast before parting. A bright space with a view and one that can get extended outdoors in order to enjoy the last rays of sun or the early morning lights.
A spacious and outwards looking room, lifted from the ground and looking out on the distant landscape. A space where to feel at home for some hours with a hint of luxury. Big windows in order to enjoy the view and an hedonistic bathroom configuration in order to enjoy the pleasures of life.
Enclosure. The project is shaped through an essential and clear gesture, the creation of a round enclosure. The circular enclosure defines an interior space while creating a continuous exterior shell.
With its clear round shape, the hotel is an autonomous building able to cope with the heterogeneous surroundings. Its lack of frontality doesn’t highlight any particular relationship with the nearby surroundings as no road alignment, no urban structure or no urban fabric is significant enough to shape a building that is far bigger than some parts of the landscape and far smaller than some others.
Therefore it aims to integrate in the landscape in a different manner, that is, establishing a relationship with the large elements of the landscape, the ones that truly shape the territory and not the fragments that rather dismember it. The vision is to create a strong autonomous building that is part of a natural system that stretches along the torrent all the way to the Besòs river and along the water purification plant’s forest all the way to la Roca del Vallès.
Given its location near the highway junction and along some major roads, the hotel is a building that is going to be perceived in movement. Its round shape echoes the movement of the cars along those roads and the curves of the infrastructure . The facade, composed of straight green panels mounted one on top of eachother, captures the shadows from the continuously moving sunlight, creating a suggestive and attractive always changing appearance.
The central lobby is conceived as an enclosed garden open to the sky. It is a piece of landscape protected from the exterior by an interactive climatic layer, dominated by tall trees and wild extensive vegetation on the ground. It is a fresh and shadowy space during spring and summer, and a sustainable warm and cozy area during winter. This garden sets the tone for the interior atmosphere of the hotel which is fresh, sustainable, uncomplicated and spacious.
