The ‚Hotel Schnitzmühle’ isn’t just an ordinary hotel, nor a typical wellness-temple, but it’s a hotel that wants to offer a different kind of recreation to its guests.
The hotels’ concept can be divided into three segments, a so-called Adventure Camp:
A hotel additionally offering a conference hotel as well as a campsite.
Especially in this area guests are usually offered hotels, which are either specialized on a wide spectrum of spa services or offering standardized accommodation.
Surprisingly there can be found a harbourage in the Bavarian hotel-jungle that entirely departs from that norm.
Realization in architecture
The surrounding conditions of this construction project were everything but optimal and even appeared to be relatively problematic. Especially the room sizes being an unchangeable variable were challenging. The rooms had a ceiling height of 2.37 meters and besides the standard rooms had a relatively small ground area of 17,6 m² only. To embed these sizes into harmonic proportions was one of several exercises.
Furthermore, the conversion time was very limited. Within 19 days, the modification had to be completed. Considering that the floor covering requires eight days drying time, a professionally detailed and comprehensive planning was essential.
Requirements for the design were that, inspired by nature, everything blends over blurred into one another. Therefore the basic elements of the room: floor-ceiling-wall, had to give the impression of a unit to the viewer. The illusion of a “room case” was reached by using special material - a liquefied stone. The use of this material first makes the room case merge into one unit. In addition reflective elements (e.g. glimmer shares) were added to the still malleable material in advance, intending to enliven the room and to align it to other materials used. After curing, the illusion of massive stone elements occurs.
Next to the thought of blurred boundaries, to avoid any distraction from unnecessary elements, care was taken of necessary reduction in further planning, too. In this context suits one example: the TV is hidden behind a coloured glass and fully integrated into interior architecture; it becomes visible when switched on only.
Another guideline while planning was the perceptibility of nature in the closed room. On one hand the ease of nature was supposed to be emotionally palpable, on the other hand special haptic elements were used, so that the guests could enjoy the tactile sensation of the materials original surfaces. So washbasin and desk out of brushed wood were build with a slightly roughed tree edge as these surfaces almost invite to touch the wood with its state of surface.
A special visual and haptic highlight of the rooms is the beds backboard. This space was covered with river pebbles in arduous handwork, picking up on the thought of the flowing, especially the ground of a river in this case.
This haptic diversity is supplemented by the subtly combination of various textile elements in immediate proximity to the rough materials. The result is a haptic and optical contrast, which on one hand appears exciting due to the affiliation to one colour range and on the other hand emanates relaxation.
As a divergence to the holistic natural interpretation of the interior facility, the guest rooms are providing digital electricity.
In simple terms: every source of light can be controlled individually by the use of an intelligent terminal. The guest receives an i-Pad or i-Phone app and thus is able to compile his own light scenarios.
The guest perceives an unexpected contrast out of experiencing nature and using
high-tech.
Furnishings were chosen to be in black colour. White and conventional elements would disturb and appear strange in this tonal context. The mix of materials makes the rooms’ atmosphere natural, representational, up to date, but still comfortable.
The result is a unique and coherent mix of archaic and modern impressions that nevertheless appears independent. Above all, this individual mixture is very different to all conventional furniture trends. Despite the tight budget an architectural work of art could arise.