The street-facing side of number 50, Hamburger Allee, in Hannover appears almost monotonous, with regular windows on a uniform brick facade. But you only have to approach it and pass through the inviting fuchsia glass door leading to the Prizeotel reception, for a stimulating and ‘immersive’ experience. The Hannover hotel is the third hotel in the chain founded by Marco Nussbaum and Matthias Zimmermann in 2006 with the aim of offering guests design hotels at affordable prices.
Like the other two opened in Bremen and Hamburg, this latest hotel, completed in December 2015, was designed by the prolific Karim Rashid, who imagined spaces, interiors and objects – from cutlery to rooms to communal areas – and above all created a playful, unique ‘atmosphere’ and a recognizable brand.
For Rashid, design aims “to improve the poetic, aesthetic, experiential, sensory and emotional content of our lives”, and the Prizeotel is an excellent synthesis of his design philosophy. The use of colour and forms gives the interior spaces ‘body’ and impacts the user’s experience of that space.
Private and public environments are rich and dense without being intrusive, characterized by a generous use of colour and the seductive and soft design of the forms. Varying colour shades over wide backgrounds in a ‘brazen’ palette that combines glossy white used as a ‘background’ with more saturated colours and optical effects: from the fuchsia of the entrance to the range of violet and cornflower blue for the coatings on the walls and floors, to lemon yellow, the alter ego of white and black, spread everywhere in the service facilities and interiors, to emphasize curves, backgrounds and proportions.
Service facilities define environments and functions, becoming true visual ‘landmarks’: the reception desk, which first welcomes the guest and then extends in an irregular trajectory and continues to form the space for the bar, or the monolithic buffet that stands at the centre of the breakfast room.
The characteristic features are irregular but smooth, enriched by abundant content and graphic elements, such as asymmetric cuts for ceiling lighting, optical designs for coatings, the open storage space of the mobile wardrobe in the rooms, the headboard of the bed and the bathroom mirrors.
The Prizeotel is part of the collection Contract&Hospitality – Spring/Sumer Book 2016 by IFDM, also available in digital version.
Credits:
Ownership: Prizeotel Group
Project Manager: Kamala Hutauruk
Project Team: Alex Loyer Hughes, Mana Mohammadkhani, Juliette Shih, Mike Gibson, Youssef Eskandar
Main suppliers: Karim Rashid for Martela, Nienkamper, Redi, Bonaldo, B-Line, Vondom, Kundalini, Nimbus. Custom digital printed ceramic tile with pattern by Karim Rashid. Globalove wallcovering collection by Karim Rashid for Marburg Wallcovering. Backlit glass wall with digital printed film applied as glass interlayer.
Photo Credits: Eric Laignel
