Hotel As A City? Peter Fattinger Week

When Peter arrived, he found a main intricated structure of scaffolding hiding some living units. Each unit was refined and curated after the work with Benjamin, but the quality of each particular space did not match the outdoor spaces’ quality.
After two weeks of spontaneous building, it was necessary to analyse the whole structure to see what was missing and how it would be developed further. Shared spaces, connections and new spaces for different units had to be planned. It was time to sit and think as Urban Planners.

A new L shaped part was added to the main building to host new capsules gathered around a public square. The new units would be smaller to densify the structure and enhance public spaces.
All the upper floors and the roof have been connected with bridges and terraces defining an infrastructure serving the whole complex. At the end of the week, the Hotel had developed an urban quality.

Drawing from Mattia Gammarota, workshop student representing the final output of the Hotel. One can see the complexity of the spaces created during those 4 weeks. From the extension of the existing functions to the elaboration of standard unit typologies, then the creation of singular microcosms like the “gipsy room” and finally the connection of those different spaces with a common infrastructure.

Drawings like this one have been done before, during and after the building process. Instead of going from planning to building, in these Workshops, the students first had to find the materials to experiment with them, learn how to use the tools and what kind of spaces could come out from this particular conditions. After this first experience of the different solutions and building typologies, it was then possible to go the other way round, make a plan of the cell or of the whole structure and execute it.
This circular process from building to planning and from planning to building worked the same in the entire Hotel project. From the first night, we were improvising a shelter in limited conditions, to a “real” architecture project to present to the authorities, to an improvised architecture again, in the building workshops.