From shop to hotel
Re-opening shops by transforming them into high-tech, elegant suites. The result is Town@House Street, an innovative formula of metropolitan accommodation.
This project is characterized by extremely innovative elements. It was commissioned by Alessandro Rosso and the interiors were designed by Architect Simone Micheli; it is an unusual convergence point for investors, entrepreneurs and consumers.
The new idea for hospitality, called Town@House Street, combines design, comfort, technology and aims to exalt the pleasure of staying in a peaceful luxury suite in the heart of the city atmosphere. In these times of crisis, the real estate market is stagnant, shops are closing down so why not transform them into modern spaces to inject life into the city’s commercial areas, even those that are derelict and have been abandoned? This is exactly what Alessandro Rosso did. He is the founder of the chain of luxury hotels TownHouse. Four suites are already operational in Milan’s Via Goldoni 33 while the requests for this unusual type of hospitality formula have reached him from several European and non-European countries.
Town@House Street wishes to offer travelers the pleasure of finding a piece of home everywhere around the world; in this way “the concept of jet-lag is overcome – explains Rosso – because the traveler is bathed in the city, and its rapid movements. It is possible to see the streetlights, come into contact with the city’s inhabitants as though sitting at an open-air bar. The city becomes a travel companion and the suite becomes a home with all the advantages of a hotel”.
The new hospitality concept was also approved by Milan City Council. As the Director of Tourism, Massimiliano Orsatti explained ‘this formula combines and exalts two unmistakable top quality Milanese features, the great hospitality tradition and the creative research in design. This combination generates new urban spaces, places of the past which have been rediscovered and revitalized to describe the most intimate identity of the modern city”. The project enjoys the flexibility allowed under laws issued by the Lombardy Regional Government for tourism: the shops do not require any change of use in urban development terms as these units are described as ‘Non-hotel hospitality – holiday accommodation’, implying a rental period of between 7 days and 3 months.
The proprietor of the store can negotiate a contract, a sort of franchising agreement, with Rosso’s company which will take care of managing every aspect of the premises, from the complete restructuring to the advertising and services. The management is innovative and all on-line: from the reservation of services, including a Jaguar as a courtesy car to travel around the city.
Thanks to agreements with shopkeepers, markets, bars and restaurants in the area, the client can avail of a number of services: from fresh milk to newspapers, from breakfast to laundry and shopping for people who wish to have their own food cooked in the suite by a butler. ‘The city penetrates our spaces – explains Rosso – and we use them to bring business to other shops. We offer the services that the reception of the classical hotel usually provides; cleaning of the suites, reservations for restaurants or meals that will be delivered at the time requested”.
The first four Milanese suites designed by Simone Micheli – others will benefit from the creativity of other designers – take their distance from the well-known hospitality stereotypes - and as Micheli himself explained ‘they transmit a sense of uniqueness, powerful identity and interconnection with the urban fabric. The exteriors, designed like hotel corridors, penetrate the adjoining areas of the hotel and change their meaning. In this way a special type of osmosis is created between the inside and the outside”. It is a concept of contemporary hospitality where the arrangements of the classical hotels disappear: the reception desk, the entrance lobby, corridors, stairwells and elevators have all been eliminated. The suites face directly onto the city-street and have an independent access, controlled electronically by a touch pad. Guests digit the booking number which was assigned to them on-line (www.townhousestreet.com).
The entrance is surveyed by close-circuit TV, operative 24 hours a day and linked to the Police; the windows are highly sound-proofed and offer maximum security. On the outside, four plant pots containing tall palm trees, again designed by Simone Micheli, in colors referring to the dominant shades used in the furnishings for each suite. These have been positioned on the footpath in front of the window, creating a sort of open public lounge. The interiors have a modern and essential design and with a strong tendency to a technological vocation. On the walls, spectacular large-scale photographs produced by Maurizio Marcato present views of the city, its squares, the streets, the more important Milanese monuments. They surround the space, expanding and transfiguring it. The four PHS (permanent hospitality space) in Via Goldoni cover a surface area of approximately 35 sq.m. each, with the exception of a double suite measuring approximately 50 sq.m.
These are real mini apartments that are complete with every convenience – a wardrobe, bathroom and kitchen. The furnishings are characterized and are differentiated for the lively dominant colors (contrasts of green, orange, red, white and yellow) and formal solutions that identify the various spaces, combined with the common ground of contemporary design – items such as back-lit mirrors which exploit colored Leds and which incorporate a large LCD monitor.
This project is characterized by extremely innovative elements. It was commissioned by Alessandro Rosso and the interiors were designed by Architect Simone Micheli; it is an unusual convergence point for investors, entrepreneurs and consumers.
The new idea for hospitality, called Town@House Street, combines design, comfort, technology and aims to exalt the pleasure of staying in a peaceful luxury suite in the heart of the city atmosphere. In these times of crisis, the real estate market is stagnant, shops are closing down so why not transform them into modern spaces to inject life into the city’s commercial areas, even those that are derelict and have been abandoned? This is exactly what Alessandro Rosso did. He is the founder of the chain of luxury hotels TownHouse. Four suites are already operational in Milan’s Via Goldoni 33 while the requests for this unusual type of hospitality formula have reached him from several European and non-European countries.
Town@House Street wishes to offer travelers the pleasure of finding a piece of home everywhere around the world; in this way “the concept of jet-lag is overcome – explains Rosso – because the traveler is bathed in the city, and its rapid movements. It is possible to see the streetlights, come into contact with the city’s inhabitants as though sitting at an open-air bar. The city becomes a travel companion and the suite becomes a home with all the advantages of a hotel”.
The new hospitality concept was also approved by Milan City Council. As the Director of Tourism, Massimiliano Orsatti explained ‘this formula combines and exalts two unmistakable top quality Milanese features, the great hospitality tradition and the creative research in design. This combination generates new urban spaces, places of the past which have been rediscovered and revitalized to describe the most intimate identity of the modern city”. The project enjoys the flexibility allowed under laws issued by the Lombardy Regional Government for tourism: the shops do not require any change of use in urban development terms as these units are described as ‘Non-hotel hospitality – holiday accommodation’, implying a rental period of between 7 days and 3 months.
The proprietor of the store can negotiate a contract, a sort of franchising agreement, with Rosso’s company which will take care of managing every aspect of the premises, from the complete restructuring to the advertising and services. The management is innovative and all on-line: from the reservation of services, including a Jaguar as a courtesy car to travel around the city.
Thanks to agreements with shopkeepers, markets, bars and restaurants in the area, the client can avail of a number of services: from fresh milk to newspapers, from breakfast to laundry and shopping for people who wish to have their own food cooked in the suite by a butler. ‘The city penetrates our spaces – explains Rosso – and we use them to bring business to other shops. We offer the services that the reception of the classical hotel usually provides; cleaning of the suites, reservations for restaurants or meals that will be delivered at the time requested”.
The first four Milanese suites designed by Simone Micheli – others will benefit from the creativity of other designers – take their distance from the well-known hospitality stereotypes - and as Micheli himself explained ‘they transmit a sense of uniqueness, powerful identity and interconnection with the urban fabric. The exteriors, designed like hotel corridors, penetrate the adjoining areas of the hotel and change their meaning. In this way a special type of osmosis is created between the inside and the outside”. It is a concept of contemporary hospitality where the arrangements of the classical hotels disappear: the reception desk, the entrance lobby, corridors, stairwells and elevators have all been eliminated. The suites face directly onto the city-street and have an independent access, controlled electronically by a touch pad. Guests digit the booking number which was assigned to them on-line (www.townhousestreet.com).
The entrance is surveyed by close-circuit TV, operative 24 hours a day and linked to the Police; the windows are highly sound-proofed and offer maximum security. On the outside, four plant pots containing tall palm trees, again designed by Simone Micheli, in colors referring to the dominant shades used in the furnishings for each suite. These have been positioned on the footpath in front of the window, creating a sort of open public lounge. The interiors have a modern and essential design and with a strong tendency to a technological vocation. On the walls, spectacular large-scale photographs produced by Maurizio Marcato present views of the city, its squares, the streets, the more important Milanese monuments. They surround the space, expanding and transfiguring it. The four PHS (permanent hospitality space) in Via Goldoni cover a surface area of approximately 35 sq.m. each, with the exception of a double suite measuring approximately 50 sq.m.
These are real mini apartments that are complete with every convenience – a wardrobe, bathroom and kitchen. The furnishings are characterized and are differentiated for the lively dominant colors (contrasts of green, orange, red, white and yellow) and formal solutions that identify the various spaces, combined with the common ground of contemporary design – items such as back-lit mirrors which exploit colored Leds and which incorporate a large LCD monitor.
No comments:
Post a Comment