My intention with the project was to create a palazzo for the sailors. Whilst I was visiting the city I was infatuated with the renaissance billings that have a bizarre relationship with the city. On the one hand they have their own squares and streets in the shape of courtyards and loggia.  On the other they have been adopted by the city and used as public squares. Anyone can wander off the sreet and up into these mini infrastructures and never be quite sure where the street ends and the palazzo begins. 

I created a concrete table which rises the floor level of the hostel to correspond with the level of the city. As with a palazzo, the hostel is raised slightly higher than the street and is accessed by a set o steps. The concrete table belongs to the underworld beneath the motorway bridges which is used in this area as a car park. The proposal is that beneath the hostel is a shelter for mechanics to work.

On top of the concrete table is a grid of impossibly thing 200x200mm concrete columns.  The grid, which is made up of square 3.5m bays, is ten bays wide and 4 bays deep.  The plan is arranged along the length of the building to produce long narrow spaces with the characteristics of loggia. The floors are constructed in timber between the columns. Across the depth of the plan, the floors are positioned at 6m, 3m, 7m and 3m above the ground floor level. This results in an alternating shift between double and single height spaces, The double height spaces are used a loggia and the single height spaces provide the sleeping accommodation.

On the sleeping floors, the spaces between the columns are filled with timber stud walls and window frames, The timber construction between the columns would brace them. Two of the loggia are open apart from an etched glass balustrade. Where the building is enclosed, it is clad in glass panels fixed to the concrete columns. Each facade is braced with steel cables to exert tension across the structure. Within the double height spaces which are not braced by timber infill, steel cables span between the columns creating a light weight truss overhead.