Project Summary

This project required considerable collaboration between all disciplines to complete a distinctive challenge: revitalize a historic, abandoned pier into a boutique hotel with luxury amenities. Though an eyesore, the Rec Pier was important landmark, reflecting Fells Point’s rich history as a former working pier and dance hall. The hotel desired to create a unique experience by celebrating and highlighting the pier’s historic features. As a dilapidated landmark, this restoration came with considerable complexity: it required significant structural interventions and meeting Federal, State and Local preservation standards. This submission highlights the collaboration between our firm, as design landscape architect, and the local landscape architect of record to create the most successful feature of the hotel: a signature, open air courtyard around which all interior rooms are oriented.

Special Factors
The lobby and courtyard, a 8,200 SF space that runs the length of the pier, is a dynamic space that functions in multiple ways: as primary circulation between lobby and pool, as connection to the outdoors, and as flexible space that allows for both intimate conversations and larger gatherings. It incorporates the historic steel girders of the original pier, offering open air views through them to the sky while sitting beneath River Birch trees. Collaboration with the interior architect and the local landscape architect of record resulted in a natural flow between interior
and exterior spaces. Elements like a herringbone paving pattern prevalent in the Fells Point neighborhood are replicated in the courtyard paving. To maintain privacy in courtyard guestrooms while allowing views and light, a bi-level hedge runs the length of the space, separating public from private. It undulates in a wave pattern, referencing the hotel’s location over water. The walkway from lobby to courtyard slopes gently to obstruct sightlines into the guestrooms. Raised planters, required in order to create planted landscape above the pier’s slab, define both intimate and larger gathering spaces in the courtyard.