Red Dot Hotel / Steven Wu+Wang Pe-Jen

Curated by ArchDaily

Architects: Steven Wu+Wang Pe-Jen
Area: 360 m²
Year: 2014
Photographs:Andrew Chang / Double Hong

Text description provided by the architects. Reddot Hotel is transformation of a thirty-five year old hotel formerly the Galaxy Hotel. 2014, the building was reconstructed and got rebirth. Therefore, the design team began by doing a thoughtful research of the district where the hotel is located. They discovered the old and aging district is packed with elegant buildings with fine materials. So, they decided the effort to bring new life to the hotel should be combined with a mission to give the building a significant role to tell the story of the district.

The ordinary building materials for hotel design are abandoned. The nature of materials from tough times is rediscovered within the space-time memory. For example, the building adopted a very regional red brick and pebble surface as its only cladding materials so that the faced could have a consistent dialogue with the district’s context as well as bring back good old memories of the district’s glory days.

We did not copy old-fashioned decorations but apply the new design to reappear the vitality of old material. The design goes throughout the arrangement of exterior and interior space.

Welcoming signs in LED revive a nostalgic melody as if the clock was set back 40 years. At first sign in lobby, Fireproof Brick were used to the wall, Reduction Firing Brick to the ground, and figured glasses on arched windows. We put various construction materials with people’s common memories together to reproduce those beautiful days in the past.

As a hotel, Reddot Hotel wants to make each passenger feel pleasure and comfortable.

Interesting elements include a stainless tube slide spiraling down from the second to the first floor that immediately catch one’s eye. The spiral slide is made by 102 stainless steel sheet, the metal slide is 27 meters in length. Each time passengers sit on the slide and go down, they laugh out loud and enjoy in it. We image that when stainless steel sheets of slide reflect colorful neon light, it just becomes a time tunnel which brings our memories back. So, Steven Wu, the designer of slide, truly believes the slide is not simply for fun but rather it is a symbolic object reversing time and space.

Taking familiar materials but using them in innovative ways brings a sense of the fresh to the hotel. On the basement floor, there is a dining hall paved with classic terrazzo floor. The furnishings used of made up of old elements preserved from old hotel. Components taken from visible in many furnishing elements.

In guest room, we consider about that if it is comfortable and cozy as in home to every guest. Wooden floor, serpentine and Hakka fabric was generally applied in interior design. These ingredients makes the guestroom more peaceful and reliable just like home. Besides, the problem of a very low net floor to ceiling height from the second to eighth floor needed a proper solution. Using color and furnishing layouts was a useful way to levitate the pressure of tight space. Reddot Hotel was located in the central district, and old district in Taichung. We smartly combined different materials to connect time and space. This is the core of Reddot Hotel’s interior design idea.