ImmerseFlow is a Wellness Spa hotel segment that blends sensory treatment with water-enhanced tranquility. It is part of The Hotel, a collective project that studies the hotel, both as a building type and as a place of hospitality, through a collection of fourteen individual contributions inside one skyscraper. The project imagines hospitality as a realm of exchange that condenses the diversity of the city through an assortment of guests, staff, and the broader public.
The hotel is a function of temporality and hospitality. The study questions the requirements for an architecture of hospitality to welcome, host, and entertain. As an architecture of temporality—an architecture that is dynamic and ever-changing, embodying a sense of transience and constant activity—the hotel allows for experimentation, while anticipating adaptation to meet the changing demands of its temporary residents. The hotel, as type, is understood beyond its curated front. It is, instead, a place of anonymity and exchange, of served and serving, a place characterized by short stays in a lasting structure.
The skyscraper, as a formal and monumental object, appears to contrast the hotel’s temporality. In its autonomy, the skyscraper is a landmark in the skyline. Located in Midtown Manhattan—on the former site of Hotel Pennsylvania and adjacent to Penn Station—this project is a reflection on the metropolis of New York City.
The Hotel consists of the design of the skyscraper as landmark—The Metropolitan—and the hotel as tenant—One Hotel.
Collective propositions:
1. The Hotel embraces the frenetic energy of New York City while opposing its outward expansion.
2. The Metropolitan will outlast One Hotel.
3. One Hotel accommodates fourteen types of guests, and its staff.
4. One Hotel shares accommodation, amenities, systems, and services with a 24/7 cycle.
5. The Hotel sets a standard for an architecture of hospitality.
Wellness Spa propositions:
1. Establishing an unadorned sanctuary in the skyscraper and blending artificial with natural rejuvenation offers an escape from the city’s ornate mundanity.
2. Nestled above the slit between the two parts of the skyscraper, the Wellness Spa segment is veiled in spring garden mist, blurring its form into a tranquil haven.
3. Guests wander through aquatic gardens, in parallel with the plumbing system, discovering a journey of holistic well-being.
4. The Wellness Spa segment converts the skyscraper’s communal water system into a hydrotherapy oasis and boosts amenities and financial viability through collaboration with neighboring hotels.
5. The Wellness Spa segment, revealing its mechanical core, shows serene spaces that counter urban extravagance.