The Society Hotel Bingen
Location:
Bingen, Washington
Type:
Hospitality
Owner:
Society Hotel
Interior Designer/Landscape Designer:
Blossom
Contractor:
Orange Construction
Photographer:
Lara Swimmer
Status: Completed 2019
Awards:
︎︎︎ 2021 Dezeen Awards, Hospitality Category, Longlist
︎︎︎ 2021 Architizer A+ Awards; Finalist
︎︎︎ 2020 Gray Awards; Editors Pick
︎︎︎ 2020 Architects Newspaper Best of Design
Commercial Hospitality Category; Winner
︎︎︎ 2020 AIA Oregon Awards; Honor Award
Press:
︎︎︎ 2020 Architecture and Culture Magazine
︎︎︎ 2020 Metropolis
︎︎︎ 2019 Dezeen
︎︎︎ 2019 AN Interior Magazine
︎︎︎ 2019 Dwell
︎︎︎ 2019 ARCHITECT Magazine
︎︎︎ 2019 World Architecture
︎︎︎ 2019 Curbed
︎︎︎ 2019 Design Milk
︎︎︎ 2019 World Architecture News
︎︎︎ 2018 Portland Monthly
Bingen, Washington
Type:
Hospitality
Owner:
Society Hotel
Interior Designer/Landscape Designer:
Blossom
Contractor:
Orange Construction
Photographer:
Lara Swimmer
Status: Completed 2019
Awards:
︎︎︎ 2021 Dezeen Awards, Hospitality Category, Longlist
︎︎︎ 2021 Architizer A+ Awards; Finalist
︎︎︎ 2020 Gray Awards; Editors Pick
︎︎︎ 2020 Architects Newspaper Best of Design
Commercial Hospitality Category; Winner
︎︎︎ 2020 AIA Oregon Awards; Honor Award
Press:
︎︎︎ 2020 Architecture and Culture Magazine
︎︎︎ 2020 Metropolis
︎︎︎ 2019 Dezeen
︎︎︎ 2019 AN Interior Magazine
︎︎︎ 2019 Dwell
︎︎︎ 2019 ARCHITECT Magazine
︎︎︎ 2019 World Architecture
︎︎︎ 2019 Curbed
︎︎︎ 2019 Design Milk
︎︎︎ 2019 World Architecture News
︎︎︎ 2018 Portland Monthly
The Society Hotel is a singular resolution of multiple conflicting contextual factors. Located deep in the Columbia River Gorge, the project's site has views of the river and surrounding hills, yet sits isolated by a series of industrial facilities and neighborhoods. The hotel's relationship to the dramatic landscape of the Gorge, and its location within a residential setting required a sensitivity to scale and the privacy of its neighbors. Our approach creates an "Edited Panorama” that uses massing of the new hotel to limit the middle ground view and instead, enhance the connection between the hotel courtyard and the more distant surrounding landscape of the Gorge.
The client's program consisted of four components: the adaptive reuse of a former school, twenty hotel cabins, a covered pathway, and a freestanding spa. Approaching the renovation of the school with a relatively light touch, we organized new elements within a larger figure on the school's former play fields. In our scheme, the individual cabins form a ring that loosely defines the edge of the site. While each living unit is detached on the ground, it is united with the others through a shared roof above that cantilevers to provide covered walkway and series of porches for the cabins.
Within the ring, a community spa building serves as a central gathering space with shared amenities for the hotel's visitors. The spa maintains a similar material palette to the surrounding cabins, yet has a distinctly volumetric form. Avoiding a singular front entrance, the building instead opens onto each side of the ring. On its interior, the structure expands upward to a large skylight, which washes light over a series of pools below. Four large piers shape this collective space, while additionally containing more private areas, including changing rooms, sauna, kitchen, and massage rooms.
Through the strategic placement of elements, the Society Hotel reconciles the competing needs of the site and its users. Maximizing views outward, while being respectful neighbors, the design consolidates the disparate programmatic elements into a singular form that both defines an internal community space and embraces its surrounding environment.
The client's program consisted of four components: the adaptive reuse of a former school, twenty hotel cabins, a covered pathway, and a freestanding spa. Approaching the renovation of the school with a relatively light touch, we organized new elements within a larger figure on the school's former play fields. In our scheme, the individual cabins form a ring that loosely defines the edge of the site. While each living unit is detached on the ground, it is united with the others through a shared roof above that cantilevers to provide covered walkway and series of porches for the cabins.
Within the ring, a community spa building serves as a central gathering space with shared amenities for the hotel's visitors. The spa maintains a similar material palette to the surrounding cabins, yet has a distinctly volumetric form. Avoiding a singular front entrance, the building instead opens onto each side of the ring. On its interior, the structure expands upward to a large skylight, which washes light over a series of pools below. Four large piers shape this collective space, while additionally containing more private areas, including changing rooms, sauna, kitchen, and massage rooms.
Through the strategic placement of elements, the Society Hotel reconciles the competing needs of the site and its users. Maximizing views outward, while being respectful neighbors, the design consolidates the disparate programmatic elements into a singular form that both defines an internal community space and embraces its surrounding environment.
A ring of cabins defines a shared courtyard. With a connecting roof, this ring acts as a visual frame, constructing views outward between cabins and upward into the hills of the Columbia River Gorge.
