Helsinki-based Studio Puisto used hanging basket seats, strips of timber and potted plants for the interior of this 20-room hotel in Tampere, Finland (+ slideshow). A meeting room is situated on one side of the floor plan, and there is a communal kitchen that is also available to hostel guests. Related story: Agence Jouin Manku transforms Saint-Lazare priory into modern hotel and restaurant»Rather than fulfilling the conventional hotel standards, it tries to offer everything that a guest really needs for a good nights sleep,» they said. Timbers criss-cross the white painted ceilings to give a coffered appearance. «The open character of the industrial building is strengthened by placing the rooms as separate units in the open space,» said the architects, «thus creating a feeling of being in a public park in between individual volumes.»
Wooden cocoon chairs are suspended from the ceiling on lengths of rough-fibred rope in the corridor that runs outside the bedrooms. Slim strips of multi-tonal timber line the white and grey walls to mark the bedroom entrances, and are used inside to stripe the walls behind the beds. Photography is by Patrik Rastenberger. Half of the rooms – those with double beds – have street-facing windows, while the twin rooms, positioned off-grid in the middle of the complex, have clerestory windows that bring in light from the corridors. The architects designed the rooms to be fairly basic to keep costs low, focusing on creating private sleeping space. The Dream Hotel was recently selected by British tabloid the Daily Mail as one of the top ten «poshtels» in Europe. The hotel owners hope these features will add value over a conventional hotel experience. This arrangement was also intended to integrate some of the ideas of shared space from the hostel into the hotel.
