Jagiełło Krysiak Architekci shared with us the “Hilton Garden Inn” project, located in downtown of Katowice, the main city of Upper Silesian Industrial District in southern Poland. The plot has an excellent connection with the DTŚ-main road and Grundmann St. that provides down to the A4-Motorway, also it’s only 700 meters far from the City Centre.
The building’s form has been shaped by location and spatial determinants, such as the shape of the plot, overall dimensions of the surrounding buildings, river, high-voltage network, local and projected transport system.
The plot has an irregular shape. Its’ narrower part is connected with and it closes the frontage of one from the oldest streets of the city (Gliwicka St.). It’s the reason why the height of Hilton’s facade in this section is adopted with reference to the neighboring houses which is about 17 meters. The height of the building in the back of the area reaches 40 meters which gives it a rank of a spatial dominant and the nearest existing dominant is in 450 meters distance. There is a plan which envisages the construction of communication and transport system crossing by the city nearby the plot, so it justifies location of a dominant in this part of the Katowice.
Another precondition for localization and shape of the building are river at the east and high-voltage network at the east and north. It forces to withdrawal an elevation from the eastern and northern border of the site. The place that last because of this move is uses for communication, transport and sidewalks (driveway to the Hotel, entry to the underground garage).
The building is visually and functionally divided into two parts, the lower – offices and the higher – hotel.
The heights of the specific parts are carefully chosen so that the new building fit into the surrounding existing buildings and do not concealed the residential ones. At the same time it takes the role of spatial dominant in this very part of the city.
The building wraps around an inner patio – garden – which is its’ heart. On the ground floor around this “heart” are located the most important public building’s functions. From the east side there is a large overhanging above the road and sidewalk which lead to the main entrances into the whole building (hotel, offices, underground garage).
The external elevations are inspired by the surrounding brick buildings. Large exterior openings are the result of an idea of transformation of the brick pattern (every second row of windows), which can be observed on a number of houses on the Gliwicka St.. At the same time, to give the dynamic look, arrangement of facade openings is not constant. Window size increases with each subsequent floor level in the high part of the building (vertical growth) while in the lower offices’ part, window size increase as much as they are placed more in depth plot (horizontal growth). The elevations in the inner patio, designed as a facade of glass in which only selected panels – hotel rooms’ windows are transparent.
The roof were designed as a series of technical terraces, which were covered with steel mesh facade. This gives the illusion of slanted, multi-surfaced roof highlighting the dynamics of the proposed form.
