Hiding in Triangles

Schambelan + Fromm teamed together to design a mountain bike hotel in Pregasina, Italy.   The hotel seems to cling to the side of a mountain, approximately 500 meters above the northern tip of Lake Garda.  With the project’s geometric contorted aesthetic and proximity to a variety of routes, trails and single tracks, the hotel intends to attract extreme sports enthusiasts who would be visiting the Alps.
More about the hotel after the break.

With a site that offers such breathtaking views, the project wanted to maximize the residents’ exposure to the mountain slopes and offer complete mountain bike access at all levels.  Each unit has a full and individual accommodation of riders and sports equipment as well as a  north-east orientation to views of the lake and mountain.

The rooms are pulled away from the mountain’s back to allow a zones of access routes to connect to the units.  These access routes form two different paths which are connected on the top and bottom floor. This system of a contiguous band provides an optimal pathways in terms of trafficability and the access to each residential unit. Each access element is tilted 12 degrees, which allows the routes to change both by the natural curve of the mountain, as well as by the decreasing distance between the building and the mountain in the vertical direction.

This system generated the fixed points in the front supporting framework, as well as spaces in the metal braiding.   The voids between the framework become the residential units.  ”The structure is stabilized by three cores, which provide access to the rooms. Thus, way and construction form a unit that defines the form.”