"Hotel TT" is a boutique hotel with branches in Gupo and Seomyeon in Busan. Surveying the first and 20th floors, the design team was inspired by the spatial feeling of the first floor and the exterior scenery of the 20th floor. It could look down at the natural ecological park surrounded by the mountains and stream of the river Nakdonggang connected to the sea across Busan. The design team envisioned the entire concept in "a space where people can appreciate this region's own beauty and culture". According to the client who wanted a different atmosphere from any other franchise hotels, the design team proposed to break the hotels' general principles and create a space to contain a simple yet unique taste and focused on expressing natural elements.
Externally, modern and functional materials were used, and internally, it was hoped that the surrounding elements could be felt perfectly. Rather than expensive finishes or designs full of techniques, the design team imagined space-keeping emotions based on the sense of place and emphasized natural elements to reveal its identity clearly. For most people, Busan is reminiscent of the scenery of the sea and the river. In order to express such symbolic images in the space, the ceiling of the lobby on the first floor was expressed like a wave, and the foil seeming like the sunlight on the waves was chosen as the finishing material.
Artificial lighting was excluded as much as possible to make the materiality of the finishing material look better, and indirect lighting was used. Customers experience the local beauty before they are aware. Customers should walk through a long corridor with the food served on the plate at the buffer area in order to reach the restaurant on the 20th floor. The design team made use of nature beyond the window in order to overcome the problems of low-ceiling and long traffic lines. To open a large window was a strategy to make it difficult to recognize long traffic lines by being entranced with the scenery of the river Nakdonggang, the park, and the mountain Seobusan.
In order to introduce the exterior nature into the interior, the design team used a wood-tone finish and stone tiles, making customers feel like eating in a forest. While the first floor containing nature in a constructive form concentrates more on interior space, the 20th floor allows the relationship between the interior space and exterior natural elements to be recognized as one rather than disconnected.
In spatial design, "sense of place" is an element to be considered first. There is a poem by which the design team was motivated at the time to design. The river loses its name when it reaches the sea. The flow hesitates for a moment between the river and the sea. Until the river becomes a part of the sea, it doesn't complete itself. At the mouth of the river Nakdonggang, Manha Heo. Like this poem, the hotel tt Gupo was completed as a space that has something in common with nature at the spot where the sea and the river meet, taking only the place of nature as a philosophy.
- Interiors: Design By 83
- Photos: Dong kyu Kim
- Words: Gina