399 Little Lonsdale
2018 | Melbourne, Australia | Commercial, Hospitality
The complexity associated with a hotel is taken to another level when the brief for this singular building is to accommodate two: a 3-star and a 4-star hotel.
Wrapped in glass, the building’s exterior reads as a fabric-like composition of coloured grids – a vertical echo of the city’s latticed ground plane. This condition where the facades fade and shift, permanently engages the building in an active dialogue with the cityscape or skyline. Much like it’s city’s culture, the building’s skin is a rich variegation – with the pattern also serving to blur any distinction between the two hotels within.
What would otherwise have been a 20 metre solid and closed front is made permeable, so the building generously allows pass-throughs. A part of the land was used to create a new laneway sending art lovers towards some of Melbourne’s best mural stretches. The facades here at 399 Lonsdale Street subtly try to invert that traditional spandrel/window relationship. With the use of colour shifts, opacity and transparency in the curtain wall panels, the facade manages to disguise the transition in floor levels throughout the height of the tower.
