RED & WHITE - BOUTIQUE HOTEL AND RESTAURANT
Red&White - Boutique Hotel and Restaurant, Mandalay, Myanmar | 2018
The project intervention is located in Mandalay, the old capital of Myanmar.
The surrounding built environment extends itself around the hystorical centre, fenced by walls, where temples, monasters, large parks and the royal palace take place. The source of inspiration of this new challenging project is indeed the colours and geometries of the hold fortifyied city and the great temples around it.
The project site has a rectangular shape and has on its front side a little burmese house, while at backside, in the direction of the old walls of the city, an open and not constructed piece of land.
The will of the property is to realize a restaurant inside the existing structure and a mini-hotel in the free part of the plot of land.
Even if the project themes are two, and also mantaining separated the different functions, we thought at the complex as a unique intervention. A facility integrated in the core of the city, at tourism service. At one side the restaurant, white, on two levels with a terrace; on the other side the stereometric geometry and the brick-red color of the mini-hotel.
In the first one, we’ve imagined and wanted to create a retrò atmosphere, using the ancient colors: The dark wood for the tables and ceiling, the treated concrete for the pavement, historical pictures of Mandalay’s characters in black and white on some walls. An entry zone with sofas with on its back a wine wall, as a comfortable and welcoming place for guests who experience the sensation of being hosted in a house.
On the first floor, a terrace stands with wooden pavement and a bar shaped in natural metal sheet. In the choice of the colors, a strong note of color comes from the chairs in brick-red, on the background of black, gray, brown, white and charcoal grey.
The chairs are made in rigid polyurethane, they are soft and comfortable and can be proposed also in filled version with exposed seam that reminds an elephant back.
In the second building, thinking at the fortifyied city, we have created two monoliths, covered by a non-homogeneous finishing in brick-red color. The two volumes, containing 8 rooms, are on two levels, separated by a hallway with stairs in corten metal and wood finishings. In any room two big French windows bring the light insde. The open space host the shower and the washbasin, while only the toilet is separated by a closed space with its door.
Also here the colors are hot and naturals from the wooden ceiling and pavement to the white and grey walls and furnitures.
In the space between the volumes, a continuous wall carved in wood stands form the base to the top of the wall, with a substantial material gap with the red surfaces that gives a warm and intimate atmosphere to the central space.
The stairs, always continuing in the same direction, lead to the top terrace, the sky-bar.
This upper space is completely open and only partially covered by a two-pitched projecting roof in iron, wood and glass covering.
Under this cover, there is a bar, tables for the breakfast, and an infinity pool suspended in part that has a wonderful view on the only one surrounding green landscape.
The peculiarity of this area is to be a big open space where the light is overpowering, direct or filtered by the brise-soleil posed under the glass cover, and this makes the place wonderful to enjoy all over the day.
The elevator is included in a glass parallelepiped and it links the hotel levels but also the terrace level of the restaurant.
These connections and points of view between the two constructions gives an enormous versatility to all the locations: if the restaurant on the top terrace of the hotel is full, the dinner can take place on the restaurant terrace and vice versa; these contiguous spaces are well configured also for business and meeting events.
In the end, coming from all the concept phase, the name of the project:
RED & WHITE
Boutique Hotel & Restaurant