We were asked to convert a former Typographic Workshop into a domestic-scale structure in order to include different Hotel rooms. To do so, we refused any kind of architectural pastiche; instead, we decided to recover remnant elements of that earlier condition integrating them into a contemporary design. Our client’s brief also demanded multifunctional solutions that could link residential tourism and cultural events. For that purpose, Hotel Tipografia do Conto comprises ten rooms and a wide ground floor with flexible areas. As a result, the project incorporates several memoirs of the pre- existing building and avoids the generic tourist offer which has been gentrifying many European cities (like Porto).
The project departs from an existing compound erected in 1916 to house small industrial activities (a Typography and a Graphic Workshop), which has since closed down. Over the last few years, the structure of the building has deteriorated, making it impossible to fully reuse it for the envisaged new functions. From this previous Workshop occupation, some memories remain at the new Hotel design: the main stone façade (in Deco style), the reuse of the central patio for lighting and ventilation, and its internal spatial flexibility, especially at the ground level.
This evocation is extended to the design of the new façades around the patio – a typographic composition in a Riga wooden structure (reusing the beams of the former Workshop) –; but also, to the decorative elements on the ceilings, formed by bas-relief texts which allude to the idea of printing and typographic publishing.
The Hotel rooms recall the old Workshop ambiences: in the proportions of the ceilings; in the way the glassed toilets’ cabinets are placed in the space; in the echoes of the elegant wood surfaces. All rooms are covered by specific scripts, written by ten selected authors, from writers to designers or architects.
The scripts are converted into typographic text(ures) and inserted on the surface of the concrete ceilings. The Hotel ground floor, which includes a wide Cultural Café, remains a long and flexible space, giving access to the central patio and backyard.
In general terms, concrete (liquid stone) is the basic element of this project. Concrete is moulded or finished in three kinds of textures: “smooth” for ceilings and pavements; “striped” for the interior walls; and “rough” for the back facade. Inside, the concrete is accompanied by punctual elements in golden metal – in the decoration of ceilings, stair handrails and elevator columns – creating a desired contrast between roughness and refinement. In the courtyard, another relationship is established between the new wooden facades and an abstract carpeting of white tiles on the sidewalls.
All common areas prolong that contrasting relationship between the exposed concrete and the gilded metal surfaces, between new details and recycled furniture objects. The rear façade was also rebuilt in exposed concrete, maintaining a composition similar to that of the main front. In this way, the original alignments were kept, as well as the typological matrix of the existing lot.
Material Used:
Facade cladding: Concrete / Wood from the beams of pre-existing building
Flooring: Concrete / Stone from the facade of pre-existing building (courtyard)
Doors: Wood
Windows: Wood and Golden Metal
Roofing: Concrete slabs
Interior lighting: “Climar” and “Artemide”
Interior furniture: Vintage Furniture from Folke Ohlsson, Sigurd Resell, Niels Otto
Moller, Kai Kristiansen, Ernst Moeckl, Torbjorn Afdal, and more
