HOTEL AND THE CITY: INVERSION OF THE SELF-CONTAINED CITY HOTEL CONDITION

Abstract

Recent boom in the tourism and hospitality sector has led to the proliferation elements of the city that makes Singapore an urban metropolis Recent boom in the tourism and hospitality sector has led to the proliferation of hotel developments all around cities. Exclusivity and privatization of hotels, together with the domination of the interiorized air-conditioned environment, have epitomized and resulted in self-sufficient, hermetically sealed blocks that are designed with negligible regard or to reject the real city outside the walls of the hotels. In this manner, hotels have become self-contained cities themselves. A classic manifestation of this self-contained condition would be John Portman’s inward looking atrium hotel Westin Bonaventure, described by Fredric Jameson to be a ‘miniature city’ that abjured any relationship to existing city streets and public spaces. These guests-only hotel models keep out the public and other ‘undesirable’ elements of the city, resulting in the sterile condition of the streets and public spaces that face the hotel where public and social activities could have been accommodated and engaged. Such self-contained phenomenon manifests especially in densely built areas where the environment and public sphere are deemed to be messy or unconducive for the security and pristine image of hotels. A site of such is Little India. Little India is renowned for being the place where the Indian migrant workers gather and also a tourist attraction that houses numerous hotels and backpacker inns. A survey of the hotel developments in the area reveals the clear demarcation of boundaries between the hotels and the public streets. Just like other parts of Singapore, Little India is faced with the shrinking proportion of public spaces as more open and public spaces give way to private developments. Future hotels planned to be developed in the area will encroach upon the scarce recreational and open spaces that are currently available to the foreign workers. The development and proliferation of the existing exclusive and self-contained hotel models would thus only compound such a situation. As the density of the area continues to increase, it will ultimately be an insurmountable task to add large conventional public spaces since the space left in the public domain will become increasingly limited. Can there thus be the accommodation and integration of smaller pockets of public spaces with the increasing number of private developments? How can hotels, as private developments, be designed differently to accommodate, engage and interact with public spaces, activities? The thesis ambition is to invert the self-contained condition of hotels and to redefine the exclusive relationship between the private hotel developments and the public sphere of the city. Instead of the all-too-familiar hotel - self-sufficient with a podium block of amenities feeding the tower of rooms above, the thesis proposes a hotel that opens up to the city, integrates public spaces and taps into the life and activities of the surrounding city such that they become part of the hotel’s program and experience. The architecture exposes itself to the dynamic character and unplanned ‘chaos’ of the urban environment, whilst maintaining a degree of privacy necessary for the hotel guests. In doing so, the design strategy of the thesis rearticulates existing typical hotel typologies such as the vertical stratification of city hotels as well as the orchestrated spatial sequence of nature resorts. The aim of the thesis is to redefine the hotel’s positive relationship with its surrounding city environment and public domain, and also to encourage the perception of hotels as not merely accommodation but a direct platform to showcase the unique parts and elements of the city that makes Singapore an urban metropolis.