The Hotel Complex Paineiras

AN OPPORTUNITY WITHIN THE FOREST To develop a complex project inside one of the greatest urban forests in the world, the Tijuca Forest, may seem contradictory at first. A territory which is seen as one of the lungs of Rio de Janeiro should, at first sight, be untouchable. The great movement of people who, in a daily basis, have one of the “seven wonders” of modern world as their destiny, the Redeemer Christ, changes that original point of view. The question that urges is how to accommodate such an incompatibility? A response to that question appears as a positive opportunity. Besides finding a solution to a complicated tangle of distinct flows and ways of transportation, it is a chance to inform and bring awareness to the 6000 daily tourists of the forests’ richness and the importance of its’ preservation. THE OPTION FOR A LANDSCAPE The competition emphasized a crucial point to the project: the high number of cars and vans that should find their place within the Tijuca Forest. This consideration had two opposite solutions for a project party: on one side the parking complex would grow out of the terrain, obstructing the landscape views and compromising the local character, a landing on the ascension to the Christ, or on the other hand the parking complex would be accommodated into the terrain, freeing the landscape and the visitors’ views, through a relatively small cut into the soil, compared to the importance of the enterprise and the monumental scale of the nature itself. THE PROJECT’S STRATEGY RELATED TO A LOCAL PATRIMONY A building is a testimony of life and architecture of its time. Taking that as a consideration, the project’s strategy aimed to make a clear distinction of the different periods of intervention. It proposes the recuperation of the original construction, which will receive clearly identified and justified additions, considered necessary to the new functions required. THE ORDENATION OF FLOWS AND FUNCTION The project organizes the different flows and interferences that happen and pass through the area. There are extremely complex situations going on nowadays, which involve tourism vans that come from the city, taxis, private vehicles, plus the need of great amount of parking places, the embarkment and disembarkment of the Christ’s Train and the absolute necessity of preserving the flow of traffic on Paineiras Highway. THE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM In the project’s party the promenade, in the sense of being in the Park, and the landscape, as an exuberant protagonist were adopted as priorities. To diminish the impact of the Transferring Station to the surrounding natural landscape, its roofing was transformed into a suspended garden with permeable voids, creating a new porous topography, which turns itself into a promenade connecting all of the project areas: Transferring Station, parking lots, Train Platform, Hotel, Exposition Halls, restaurants, cafeterias and Convention Center. The program was distributed according to the possibilities of the existing buildings, always considering an integral use of the spaces. Tourists and guests of the hotel may walk along the new circuits created at the level of the parks and gardened roofing of the Transfer Station, a true mosaic of the species of the traditional Rain Forest. Along the promenade, which has its origins at the stairs of the Station, or at the descending ramp from the Train Platform, there is a variety of the flora, an open air museum with ecological information. Along the water mirrors, going through the Train Park, there are stores and bicycle parking places to be found nearby. This circuit ends with a ramp that dives under the Coffee Pavilion, an antique structure dated from 1915, arriving at a deck with a view over the valley of the Cabeca River, with access to a smaller restaurant. Following the same route it is possible to reach the Chico Mendes Institute. But, before diving into this new level, there is the possibility to walk around the Hotel Square, following to the exposition halls and the hotel reception. There, on the ground level, inside the hotel, a wall was removed to give the light a better opportunity to shine inside and the rocky wall behind it, to become the background scenario of the saloon. All service support for the hotel and a central kitchen that aims to attend all restaurants and cafeterias, are located on the underground level. The antique apartments, adapted and recovered, were maintained in their original levels, dated from 1921; however, two voids were created in former rooms to create a better aeration, light incision and visual connection between the different floors. A new construction is added above this volume, which contains all the facilities of the Convention Center, such as an auditorium, conference rooms and related services. Between the new and antique buildings, on the former roofing of the Hotel, the apartments of the third floor, not part of the original project, were removed and a new panoramic restaurant with a magnificent view that reaches the ocean, was installed in its place.