Hotel Click Clack Medellín / Plan:b arquitectos

Curated by Clara Ott

Architects: Plan:b arquitectos
Area: 8723 m²
Year: 2019
Manufacturers: Grohe, AGS Stainless, Adoquinar, Argos, Corona, DIME Diseños metálicos, Decorcerámica, Estrumetal, Indural, Stonia

Text description provided by the architects. This hotel is built in one of the blocks of the orthogonal urban fabric of the traditional neighbourhood, El Poblado, in Medellín. The new construction completes the block and pierces it, creating a pedestrian crossing, an internal park and new semi-public spaces: a passage, stairs, a courtyard, a podium, platforms, terraces and a covered square. The building itself is an urban crossing with a permeable configuration. It has several accesses and is surrounded by native vegetation. This building is designed so that the daily life of the city coexists with the activities of the hotel and its users. It has been conceived as an epicentre, a centre of diverse cultural events that seek to promote local creative industries through art, gastronomic events, fairs, concerts, theatre, nightlife and various types of recreation. The life of the hotel and the city are to be mixed and to complement each other.

This hotel has more than ten different types of compact rooms, grouped and stacked in volumes of different sizes (habitable cells), separated by balconies, gardens and terraces, where the tropical climate can access and affect the building with its fresh air currents, native vegetation and pleasant temperature. Each room has a unique location in the building, according to its height and its relationship with the exterior or interior of the building: there are corner rooms, rooms towards the courtyard, towards the passage or towards the outer streets. The hallways of the building have natural lighting. The habitable terraces are of different heights and have perimeter vegetation. They function as observatories of the city: the mountain and the buildings of the El Poblado-neighbourhood is enjoyed towards the east, while the view of the valley opens towards the west. The hotel is also full of activity: it has a swimming pool, bars, restaurants and an outdoor cinema.

The structure of the building is designed to have great lighting and allow the passage of people into its semi-public areas. The expression of the structural forces of the building is part of its form. The building was thought of as a large heavy and perforated machine, resistant and friendly. The building has an internal network with connectivity through several fixed points (seven staircases, six elevators) corridors, mezzanines, ramps and doors, giving flexibility and opening singular dynamics to each type of event. Each visitor can wander through the various spaces of the building where cultural agendas and interactivity (micro experiences) take place and curiosity is rewarded. There is a single colour dominating the entire building and its elements: the colour of the shadows. In Medellín, the strong sun generates defined shadows all the time. The tones vary in intensity but always use a gradation of greys. This building participates in that same palette, and more than a volume it pretends to be a shadow that stands out and contrasts with the intense vegetation of the interior and the surroundings. Never the less, its hues of greys gives it its own personality in Medellin.