Residence G

Hotel G is Neri&Hu’s small contribution to the ongoing transformation of revamping Kowloon. The project site lies in close proximity to major shopping and entertainment areas as well as cultural landmarks. The area has enjoyed major cultural growth, with the Hong Kong Science Museum, the Gun Club Barracks, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the up and coming development of Knutsford Terrace, a popular nightlife location that seeks to rival Lan Kwai Fong on Hong Kong Island.

The building, an 18 floor office tower from the early 70s, will be transformed into a 43 room boutique hotel with a stand alone 3 storey restaurant component on the podium floors. In a fast modernizing environment, Neri&Hu’s design sets out to re-root the building into the urban fabric it originally emerged from.

Encoding the urban DNA as three dimensional grid of interweaving spaces, where privacy is minimized to the stacking of tiny apartment cells, boosting measures of various layers to interact with the public – a left over infrastructural space rather serving functional needs than communal – Neri&Hu’s refurbishment refers to those conditions by turning them into a quality, the voyager will experience in interacting with the building’s various layers.

The final and façade generating layer (an exterior screen) reinterprets the most common urban element used to block the view of the curious onlookers, the access of the trespasser and the progress of the invader: the metal folding screen.

By wrapping the 19 floors with a reinterpretation of this industrial originated element, the user will be able to define for himself the level of interaction from exhibitionism to voyeurism in participating and experiencing the Hong Kong style ambiance, the project is embedded in.

By superimposing the screen as the ultimate façade of the building, the design concept pays tribute to the times HK set out to change the movie worlds through their first own productions with a very own heritage. It is Neri&Hu’s intention to allow the guests of Hotel G to make their own discoveries within a film noir related black and white ambiance of an environment which reveals the industrial heritage of the building while avoiding becoming too decorative in its language.