LANDHOTEL SILVESTAR 2016 -

The LandHotel is located in the heart of the Istrian peninsula, on a south facing property punctuated by endogenous vegetation, olive and cypress trees and cascading retaining stone walls. The scheme embodies an architecture truly rooted in the land. The stone walls begin in the landscape and continue in the interiors to frame the atrium’s ziggurat-like space and to organise the programmatic spaces that unfold cantilevering, recessed, linear or contained, each level assuming the shape it needs for the minimum excavation and impact on the environment.

Parking and support spaces are accommodated on level -01. Upon a ‘U’ shaped level ±00, the reception, multipurpose shop-cellar and administration facilities open up to the hotel piazza. On the piazza’s forth side, the offset insertion of a ‘found’ object, a reconstructed ‘Konoba’ ‘completes’ the enclosure. Level 01, linear in plan, accommodates on either side of the dramatic atrium space, a spa with fitness and conference facilities. The interiors programmatically extend onto level outdoor terraces in the preserved olive grove. On level 02, below the horizon of the translucent green canopy, the linearity of the plan shifts and recesses onto the next height line. On the western wing, rooms are linearly arranged. On the eastern wing, the bar unfolds as a bridge between the courtyard and the ascending olive grove, and the breath-taking perspective of the Valley below. On the eastern wing, the restaurant offers generous indoor sitting and extensive shaded terraces for outdoor dining. On level 03, the shift in plan continues with hotel rooms arranged across both wings. On level 04, rooms are accommodated on the eastern wing. On the peak of the sloping terrain the six LandVillas linearly offset to one another are inserted into walled-in enclosures.

The Piazza is intended as an event space and viewing platform. Its spatial experience is defined by juxtapositions: between the ‘found’ retaining walls and ‘Konoba’ and the ‘constructed’ of the programmatic platforms. Between the roughness of the stone and the subtlety of the polished reflective surfaces of the glazed façade and hovering canopy. The geometric spacing of the vineyard rows, the rational grid of the olive groves, continuous through the landscape of Motovun, notionally project across the horizon of the translucent canopy, its slender columns and hanging vegetation. As the sun tracks across the sky, the light changes and the visual appearance of the hotel does with it. As a result, the LandHotel appears different, based on the time of day and season one visits.