The Hotel—Single Women's Segment: Her Hotel

Abstract

Her Hotel is a Single Women’s hotel segment that supports women to live freely and confidently. 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.

Single Women’s segment Segment Propositions:
1.⁠ The Single Women’s segment supports women as they face safety concerns, difficulty navigating New York City, and an increasing cost of living.
2. Elevated high in the skyscraper, the segment’s private floors are connected to the vertical city of the skyscraper through program and public spaces designed for women.
3. The Single Women’s segment caters to solo travelers and career-focused women through a kind of new domesticity, accommodations for a variety of budgets, and protection within a secure boundary.
4. The Single Women’s segment advocates for women across One Hotel, through safety measures, caregiving spaces, and hotel programming that empowers.
5. The Single Women’s segment is a place for social exchange among women.