|
Will Alsop at RMJM designs lightweight 'spaghetti-style' hotel on Costa Brava
La Fosca, a proposed scheme in a small resort on the Costa Brava in Spain, is part departure, part referential. Obviously, a town without a Will Alsop building won’t have anything quite like this, but are nevertheless supportive of the architect’s desire to build a new treehouse on the beach.
It replaces an existing, popular hotel, so the architects are keen to increase the amenity value to the town, by ensuring good public access to bars and restaurants. The ‘driftwood’ elevation and the ‘spaghetti’ on the sea-facing elevation are both referential ‘to the seaside location, and to Alsop’s Goldsmith’s College building in London, with a similar labyrinthine sculpture on its roof.
The spaghetti at La Fasca shrouds a private terrace, for the hotel’s luxury suite, and though it provides a very different view to the Goldsmith’s roof terrace in Lewisham, should be a very pleasant place to relax with a book.
The whole building screams ‘lightweight’ as it sits lightly on the ground, and produces a ‘tree top walk’ feel for its mainly external connecting corridors. There is a plan to provide alternative accommodation for hotel guests who return each year on a site behind, so sure are the designers that the scheme will proceed. Let’s hope it does.
Ross Sturley
|
