Boutique Hotel
AU_2019 | Work from Erik Herrmann + Sandhya Kochar's Graduate Studio I

This boutique hotel is an investigation of bad fits formally, programmatically, and experientially. Bad fits are defined as moments of awkwardness and unexpected encounters between hotel guests, gallery patrons, and the public passerby. Numerous lobby mezzanines, hotel rooms encroaching into galleries, and an interiorized plaza enforce the act of people watching as one moves through the boutique hotel. A continuous compression and expansion of space leads guests through all parts of the boutique hotel, ending in the expansive main gallery. The hotel’s form is derived from a collision of objects in which the main gallery asserts its formal dominance and maintained its original formal qualities.