The Brief
Design to Interrupt
The Wave Hotel explores the idea of using material and structural interfaces to disrupt and alter both the perception of movement and movement itself. Highlighting the brief encounters that people have within spaces of transition, such as passing each other in the hallway, or watching people walk past on the street, the Wave sets the scene for intrigue. A glimpse of someone turning a corner, a flash of reflection outside the room, a strange shape passing through the window are moments that could happen within the spaces.
Located along the busy thoroughfare of Collins Street, the Wave Hotel is a boutique hotel that spans nine levels including 17 hotel rooms, a restaurant, rooftop bar, wellbeing and business centre facilities. Patrons move through a series of interfaces throughout the building, some may encourage visual or physical investigation, whereas some may be encoutnered as a natural course of action. Hovever, the experiences are similar in that the activation of the interfaces are usually triggered by activity happening around the subject of the experience.
Movement moverment engages, absorbs, captivates… and therefore immersive spaces to me are often mobile. Mobile in function, mobile in context and mobile in effect.
There is a constant shift between public and private as patrons ascend the building. Although the dilineation between the two may seem clear at the outset, there is an occurance of boundaries being blurred that unfolds as patrons begin to inhabit and explore the space.
The Tunnel
The entrance to the hotel is at the back. with patrons immediately entering the tunnel which is made of structural steel and wrapped in a stainless stell mesh. The tunnel leads up to the reception area. The kitchen is an initial backdrop for people entering the tunnel, which then shifts to become the restaurant below. Equally, motion within the tunnel becomes the backdrop for restaurant patrons below.
The tunnel is lit from 3 sources, internal and external, creating a foreground background flip depending on source of human action and activation periods.
The Ripple Restaurant
An undulating lens-like structure made of acylic, filled with viscous luquids is installed at the facade of the restaurant facing the streetscape. Air bubbles are constantly in motion within the lends. The view of the street is distorted as is the motion of people passing The Ripple. The restaurant is also set slightly below street level, adding to the interruption of motion.
Colours of refraction from the lens vary when viewed through the lens of a camera.
Rooms With Views
There are multiple interfaces between the public (corridors) and private (room) spaces, where chance brief interactions are enabled through the strategic placement of mirror and glass view ports. Floor finishes also demarcate the spaces, with carpet denoting private comfortable spaces and polished concrete denoting public spaces.
Patrons are engaged by glimpses of people moving between spaces, which is suggestive of mystery and intrigue, triggering an investigation of the spatial configuration of the various rooms.
The Shell Bar
The open rooftop bar is encased in two curved translucent acylic walls, which creates “corridors of light” that move through the bar as natural and artificial lighting filter through the openings. The opacity of the walls will also vary with the time of day and amount lighting through the space. Seating is spread across the ramps that lead up to the bar and also on the rooftop level itself. The rooftop bar also leads out to a rooftop garden and pool that is suspended over the edges of the building.
The pool spills onto a pond, where a glass base cuts through the floor to the ceiling of the room below, acting as another interface between the exterior and interior of the building. Beautiful refractions of light hitting the water saturate the room below, adding textrue and motion to the various surfaces.
