Hostelturm Salzburg in Austria is a project for a hostel tower located in a dense, urban setting. The project considers the context to enable new symbioses with the existing fabric like 0148 Rachel and 0216 Siedle Haus but has an antipodal approach: the context serves here as a volume that both informs and shapes an abstract extension. The site is adjacent to the Alte Brotfabrik (old bread factory), a listed building and the remaining part of a long, three-story structure with large arched windows on the ground floor. The Alte Brotfabrik is being reimagined as a tourist hub today, with a connecting movie theater designed by the Austrian architect Rüdiger Lainer. The Hostelturm project aims to link these spatial and temporal layers by combining a hotel with public offerings and access via four emergency exits crossing the entire complex.
As the main reference point for the design, the former bread factory is the cubature that is, on the one hand, reinterpreted by, and on the other hand, subtracted from, the new building. The old factory building informs the northwest facade as well as the roof-shaped void that defines the lower part of the tower. The higher volume on top is slightly shifted southwards, so that it cantilevers over the lower volume. This creates a canopy over the open public stairs that connect the street with the tower and a public passageway. Together with the open ground level zone, the lower volume enables a variety of spatial situations that aim to foster encounters between locals and visitors alike. In this case, the context is used as a decisive design element to attune the new structure to the existing mix of building scales and eras.
© Brandlhuber+ Team
© PONNIE Images
© PONNIE Images