Hotel Puerta América, Eighth Floor
The Hotel Silken Puerta América in Madrid is an innovative project that involved numerous architects and designers. Kathryn Findlay designed the interior of the eighth floor.
The innovation supporting the design by this Scottish architect is the creation of interactive space. Her interest in integrating technology and architecture is reflected in her collaboration with the interactive designer Jason Bruges. Both have achieved a provocative, surprising interior in which the guest has no choice but to get involved: there is simply no other option. What is more, all the internal divisions in the rooms are made using curtains; not even the closets have doors. As a whole, it is an extremely suggestive design with a highly feminine touch.
Findlay and Bruges have determined that guests must play with the space, discover it for themselves and, through this interactivity, discover themselves as well. First of all, the lobby features a bench in the shape of a small maze, bulbous in appearance. This is a project just waiting for the guest to join in. It is an interactive conception of the space, one of the premises underlying the work of both designers. Fibre optic panels have been designed for the lobby, which Bruges calls Memory Wall and which capture the guests’ movements only to later project a distorted image of them over the panels made with points of colour. The ceiling is stretched canvas curving outwards, creating a bulbous structure.
The most singular feature of the rooms is that Findlay refused to consider walls or doors. Everything has a highly feminine touch, since the separation between the spaces is made through simple, sweeping white curtains that separate the bathroom from the room. The entire room is white and forms a single space. Depending on how it is approached, the bathroom is on one side, the closet on the other and the bed is always towards the back of the room. In certain cases, the architect has placed a single bed that does not touch the floor, as it is suspended from the ceiling via a steel structure; the headboard also acts as a desk. Several round lamps confer light. At the foot of the bed in the window looking out onto the façade, the architect takes advantage of the space for designing a divan with cushions that span the entire window. The entire space within the room is thus liable to being used. The television, placed over the bed, is flush with the ceiling. The floor is made of resin and the walls and ceiling of painted wallboard. The bathroom is quite simple. The bathtub, round in shape, entices guests into sensual, relaxing baths, reinforced by the curved lines of the curtains, with a large shower head embedded in the ceiling. The toilet is the only part that is clearly separated by means of a translucent glass door with a small opening that acts as a handle.
