Synergia Progetti

Progetto Architettonico : SERGIO LOS & NATASHA PULITZER

Concorso appalto a inviti per la riqualificazione ambientale e la ristrutturazione di un grande complesso al-berghiero, Palace Resort, composto da 52 bungalow e 400 camere, sala conferenze, ristoranti, bar, centro wellness, piscina coperta e scoperta, night, impianti sportivi (2002);
primo premio, progetto non realizzato

CONTEXT
The site of the Haludovo Hotel project exemplifies a typical coastal settlement of the Croatian Adriatic sea. The whole Croatian coast is interested by the strong development of a tourism economy, attracting external capitals for building new settlements. The place shows a nice marine landscape, dotted by a constellation of small towns and hamlets, characterized by an urban texture that has been adopted in our rehabilitation project, in order to communicate its specific cultural identity. The project operates by integrating better the presence of the main hotel body within the villas around it, making the hotel less monolithic. The context requires a multi-scale approach, that ranges from the rooms, to the whole building and the relationships of the various buildings within the site and the nearby Malinska centre. The Palace Resort could offer to Malinska city a more international set of services. The purpose of integrating the hotel with the villas is pursued through a common grid of paths, as could happen in a small village that has a centre (the hotel) and a periphery (the villas in the greenery).
The site, characterised by a latitude of 45.33°N, a longitude of 14.47°E and an Altitude ranging from 0 up to 104 m (a.s.l.), has a temperate rainy climate with moist in all seasons, hot summers and mild winters. The clean sky offers a good solar radiation through the various seasons.

CLIENT
The Haludovo international competition, that our group won, without realizing the project, aims for a sustainable rehabilitation of the Hotel alongside the Adriatic coast at Krk. Bought by a rich Russian business man, who committed the rehabilitation project, the whole tourism estate needs to update and valorise the structure built in the seventies. The Haludovo Hotel represents a good example of modern Croatian architectural culture. Its whole organization suggests a content whose complexity should drive the rehabilitation project, in order to maintain and enhance the quality of life that it can donate. Designed by the architect Boris Magas, the Hotel reveals a distinct personality that communicates its intention: it aims a kind of life that invites people to enjoy meeting one another. The many places for socialising make manifest this intention. The institutional requirements of this Hotel can be synthesised by the need of enhancing its complexity, making it usable for all seasons and for a great variety of activities. The project has to pursue a multiplicity of places and to become flexible, in order to be sensitive to all the suggestions collected through its activity.

SYSTEM
The logic of our rehabilitation project preserves the existing bedrooms, creating a refined homely ambience, equipped with moderation of the best technological services, but enriching all the available ground floor space with a great variety of services that could be desired for improving the body and soul of the guests. The exuberant character of the architecture follows this logic, it encourages people to communicate, and it offers a better economic productivity compared to Hotels which induce the loneliness of the guests, with big relaxing rooms and a scarcity of shared services. In this way, the hotel gains greater revenue from each guest, as the architecture invites them to use offered extra services. The presence of guests itself can become the main source for the hotel combining in a positive feed-back loop hospitality with commercial activities. Our Hotel has the logic of a ship: small but well equipped rooms and good large public spaces. As a ship it has the sea but it offers more: it embodies all the advantages of earthbound places.
Designed predominantly for summer holidays, at a time when oil shortages were not yet a prob-lem, the hotel was rational for its time. Today we expect a four season potentiality that requires the admission of winter sunlight into the indoor space, for the delight of guests but also because the energy crisis suggests the use of solar energy for climatizing the hotel. This possibility re-quires a more dynamic building envelope, able to screen sunlight in summer but to allow its entrance in winter seasons.

BUILDING
Dealing with the constructive contents, the only possible suggestion, as the building has its own set up, deals with the preservation of the structural system and the avoidance of opening up the internal partitions to enlarge the rooms. Since the partitions act as bearing walls, we considered it wiser to leave them where they are. There are seismic problems in the area and we have had the construction checked to guarantee that it will performs brilliantly in those situations. A problem arises with the movements of the various components due to their different temperature profiles through day and night. More expansion joints are needed to improve the maintainability of the building in regards to this problem. As the Hotel is built up with a concrete structure composed of thin plates, a kind of brutalism architecture, we must take care of avoid the many thermal bridges and the surface temperature of walls. A double envelope should solve many problems, preserving the architectural image but improving its environmental quality and habitability. The building, of course, has been updated according to the standards of the European Union.
Some notes about the garden that is wild, apart from the stoned paths. Some care should be putted into planting some local fragrant plants. The hotel should offer a multi-sensory experi-ence and the garden can donate the sound of birds, the fragrance of flowers and a multitude of textures for tactile experience. Its redesign should pursue also the bio-climatic role of trees and plants, turning its experience to understand the value of the local climatic features.