Students were asked to design a five star hotel. Thus, it should incorporate not only one hundred
bedrooms, as well as a bar and a restaurant, but also a Conference Center and a SPA with indoor and outdoor swimming-pool. The given site was a privileged one, especially in terms of landscape. It faced Porto’s river nearby the sea.
It was always important not only to be able to control the intersection between the public and the
private domains, but also the quality, function and comfort for both guests and hotel staff. The result
was the construction of a building dividing different areas with different views and outdoor spaces.
The public programs are then integrated in different environments in search for variaty in its daily life,
sensorial and architectural experience. These common areas form the two-storey base of the hotel
which tries to compromise itself to that topography. Bedrooms are organised in a single ten-storey
volume. This volume is divided in two heights, the lower with the common bedrooms, facing the privategardens of the hotel, and the upper with the suites, facing the sea and the riverfront.