Superbude Hotel in Hamburg by Dreimeta
Armin Fischer of the Augsburg, Germany-based studio Dreimeta, designed the Superbude Hotel in Hamburg, Germany.
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Description from the Superbude Hotel in Hamburg:
At Superbude – a totally new hotel concept – you’re staying with friends and living in a hotel. Anybody who checks in here is visitor and visited, guest and host, admirer and admired, all in one. The design idea dreamed up by 3Meta is to work with materials and objects which are totally different in purpose and thereby create a weird and wonderful new purpose. Sofas have been covered with used jeans, kitchen sinks made out of seamen’s chests, and old water pipes have been screwed together to create shelves and tables. In consideration of Hamburg as a harbour town, some of the furniture has been made out of pallets and thick ropes. Nordic by nature! This “re-design” represents an answer to the trend of sustainable working methods. The six floors of a former printing house were redesigned to create a long-term home. 74 stylish double and multi-bed rooms invite you to stay a while and relax. One huge community living in shared accommodation with a licence to party all night long – but without the annoying neighbours and no cleaning rota.
There’s nothing left to be seen of the building’s former use because there’s nothing pressing about the Superbude. The design is “laid back” and the motto is “easy going”: the rooms are refreshing, modern, straightforward and honest – good friends can’t fool each other.
But they do everything together. That’s why the highlights at Superbude are to be found in the communal rooms. In the private cinema for example! Who’s going to get the next round of snacks and sweets in at the bottle bar? The victim is quickly established by means of the Wii in the sports room. To watch the evening film, we just lounge about on EuroPallets and Astra beer crates which have been upholstered and transformed into cool furniture. There are loads of such design ideas for your own Superbude at home – free of charge, of course – and for that alone, the visit has been worthwhile.
Visit the Superbude Hotel website – here.
Visit the Dreimeta website – here.
Photography by Eckhart Matthäus
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Jimw on 22 Jul 2010 at 5:55 am #
Kitsch….at its finest.
TW on 22 Jul 2010 at 6:53 pm #
Nope. Doesn’t work.
I’m all for hotels trying to inject some individuality. But the individuality should come from the owners or the builders own quirkiness and personality.
Designers who try to create a ‘personality’ to a space that they have no personal investment in will always fail.
For example: WHY are the sofas covered in denim? What is the point of Euro pallet furniture? Or seating from Astro beer crates? That’s not cool. If there is no reason, then it is kitsch as Jimw says.
What a shame that “There’s nothing left to be seen of the building’s former use…” – a wasted opportunity to create an individual interior space.
And “This “re-design” represents an answer to the trend of sustainable working methods” leaves me cold. Simply buying giving a building another use or buying in ‘different materials (like the suction coat racks) is not sustainable.
Kristof Lenz on 22 Jul 2010 at 8:01 pm #
TW, the only failure is your ability to understand the purpose of the design choices that were made.
This is a cheap hotel, which is more accurately described as a hostel. The target market is young people who are travelling and partying with groups of friends. This is why the designer chose cheap industrial durable materials like plywood, pallets, and beer crates.
If they designed this like a Four Seasons or Ritz-Carlton, then THAT would actually be a failure.
Just because something doesn’t fit with your own personal taste, doesn’t mean it’s a failure.
Sarah Robertson on 22 Jul 2010 at 8:44 pm #
This is a bit of fun. If I was in my early 20s and backpacking across Europe with friends, this is exactly the kind of place I would like to stay.
Jon (from California) on 22 Jul 2010 at 9:04 pm #
I did stay in places like this when I was in my 20s. It was always a good time. Lots of drinking, etc…
Dole on 23 Jul 2010 at 1:42 am #
I’ve stayed in hostels, and this kind of fun and quirky design is perfect for the type of clients they have.
Randall Simmons on 23 Jul 2010 at 6:50 am #
There’s a lot of fun personality here. I enjoy it.
TW on 23 Jul 2010 at 6:55 am #
Kristof – my comments have nothing to do with my taste. The design of the hotel is actually quite appealing.
But if a designer goes to the trouble of putting in elements such as beer crates or denim topped lounges, then these elements should fall within an over riding concept. Otherwise it looks as if they have tried too hard to be cool and it can look kitsch instead.
The purpose of their design choices were to make the hotel more communal and ‘home-like’. A fantastic concept particularly for a hostel. But perhaps more thought should go into challenging traditional spatial arrangements to shift how people interact in hotels/hostels rather than assuming that quirky decoration would do the job.
kasorp on 25 Jul 2010 at 3:17 pm #
A very strange mix of styles and not completely consequent in my opinion, but I appreciate many sweet ideas in the details!