The 25 hours Hotel Hafencity, a harbour city hotel that draws inspiration from maritime culture, was designed by a multidisciplinary team headed by architect Stephen Williams. The architects worked together with a storyteller, an events agency and an illustrator to give the project meaning at all levels. The hotel forms part of one of Europe’s most ambitious urban construction projects and aims to form part of a lively new city quarter.
Stephen Williams says: “We wanted to create a web of meaning with interrelating signs and symbols referring to seafaring and harbour life. A place where old and new stories come to life. It all began from the poems of Joachim Ringelnatz with the fictitious sailor Kuttel Daddeldu, a good soul who’s deeply rooted in the seafaring life, but also coarse and a little cheeky.”
The design team drew a parallel between the guests of the hotel (‘nomads’) and sailors (‘maritime nomads’). Markus Stoll, the brand storyteller, interviewed 25 international sailors in the Seaman’s Club Duckdalben in Hamburg as part of the team’s design research. He went on to adapt their stories into semi-fictional accounts that guided the concept development of the hotel and were later illustrated by Jindrich Novotny.
The ground floor consists of a lobby, restaurant, bar and shop and is intended for use by guests and non-guests alike, continuing the lively, inclusive atmosphere of the new quarter that is being developed.
Heimat Küche + Bar takes its name from the German word for home, taking its inspiration from seafarers longing for home. The space, however, however has an industrial, shipyard aesthetic. The chaotic space is filled with ’shipping’ furniture such as warehouse shelves and rough wooden boxes, in addition to a selection of furnishings that were chosen by Connie Kotte to complete the warehouse aesthetic.
The shipyard aesthetic is continued into the conference room that sits in a shipping container donated by Hapag-Lloyd. The container wall is movable and can be hoisted up to allow access to the space or to join the conference room with the restaurant.
(Images via Dezeen)
