The primary challenge was to create a mediator for the existing dominant 1940s blocks at upper ground level and the attractive brick and steel industrial riverside buildings from the turn of the 1890s without extinguishing either. The hotel starts roadside at it’s highest point, and steps gradually downwards toward the river in a controlled manner that offers greater views and light to the existing buildings than the regulated site lines would have allowed without affecting the maximum area.

The project forms a dramatic ending to the long façade of the existing 40´s blocks at upper street level creating a portal to the cultural square.
The building’s gentle curving motion envelopes and gives a stable backdrop to both the existing buildings and the programmed cultural square.
The structure is primarily steel with concrete slabs, clad with cement fibre board cladding and render.
The roof of the overbuilt area between the existing 1940s blocks and the new scheme forms an attractive communal garden.  At the northern end a planted terracing opens the restaurant and reception to the communal garden.

The four buildings are designed as city blocks and appear more like complex “building environments” than individual buildings. The “city blocks” provide a typical urban cross-section of functions: theatre and a basement cinema. Shops on street level and and offices on middle floors with apartments with lush roof gardens. The result is a neighbourhood where a kindergarden sits next to a night club, with activities for every age and every desire.The apartments are conceived as a complete residential complex covering the rooftops of the city, with sun and magnificent views, far from the noise of the busy streets below.