The Society Hotel Bingen

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.

Located in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, The Society Hotel offers stunning views of the river, surrounding hills, and basalt outcroppings. The hotel's relationship to the dramatic landscape of the Gorge and its constrained location required a sensitivity to scale, and equally to the privacy of its neighbors and hotel guests. Our approach creates an "Edited Panorama” that uses the form, material, and massing of the new hotel to limit the middle-ground view and enhance the connection between the hotel courtyard and the more distant landscape.

The program includes the adaptive reuse and conversion of a former schoolhouse and gymnasium, twenty new cabins and terraces linked by a covered pathway, and an iconic, freestanding spa. Approaching the renovation scope with a light touch, new elements were built upon former playing fields, with the individual cabins forming a ring that loosely defines the edge of the site. Each freestanding cabin is united with the others through a shared roof that cantilevers to provide a sheltered walkway and a sense of indoor-outdoor connection.

Within the ring, a community spa building serves as a feature gathering space with shared amenities for hotel visitors and guests. The spa employs a similar material palette of striated cedar as the surrounding cabins, yet has a distinctly volumetric form. Avoiding a singular front entrance, the building opens onto each side of the ring with dynamic apertures and floor-to-ceiling folding doors. Within, the structure expands upward to a large skylight, which washes light over a series of pools below. Four “hollow” piers shape this collective space while containing more private areas, including changing rooms, a sauna, a kitchen, and two massage rooms.

Through its composition and pairing of historic and new architecture, the Society serves as a model for how buildings can reconcile the needs of a sensitive site, visitors, and the local community, and maximize connection to the surrounding landscape.