Guesthouse:Visuals

From ShunpikerWiki

Discussion on this subject is best directed to: Guesthouse Talk:Shunpiker Guest House Design

1 Artist's visualizations of the Shunpiker: Introduction
2 Additional Imagery
3 House Style
4 External Links

Artist's visualizations of the Shunpiker: Introduction

Visuals are important in conveying the Shunpiker concept. Just like the business plan, the marketing formula and the budgetting, the design of the future Shunpiker Guesthouse is continually in flux. We have ambitious plans based on a concept of authenticity and some designs reflect that. Other designs are predicated more on the concepts of community or sustainability. And obviously some designs will cost more to realize than others. We mustn't forget that to some degree the survival of the entire project, the Guesthouse and Foundation, is dependant on profitability.

Thumbnails are ordered according to the date of the drawing. The most recent designs are at the top.

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Version 11

All about verandas, loggias and ventilation. Takes up a lot of space for less rooms, but optimizes ocean breezes and gives each room a private balcony. Garden goes on the roof. Space that would normally be open or used as a garden is now used as permanent shade in the form of a veranda around the outside of the building and loggias around the courtyard. Each room unit is surrounded by open, shaded space. Hierby you create a grid of blocks and alleys, giving the opportunity to exploit axes as dramatic sightlines and to create many exterior rooms for public congregation.

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Version 10

In version 10 it's all modern, and the layout will be familiar to Travelodge customers. Space is maximized to fit more rooms. There is no courtyard but strips of green along the sides instead. The whole thing rises on a high plinth that hides a cooling basement cistern. The idea is to force a breeze over the water and recirculate it through the building, although in retrospect this is probably a naïve idea. It is based on notions of cooling coming from the dry Middle East, and from a love of the Istanbul Cistern, where you walk along a room of submerged columns.

all The 22 rooms on 2 floors are accessible by an exterior veranda, and are ventilated by an interior airshaft connected to the basement. At the streetside entry of the lot is the Service/Entry Block, with a high, central domed atrium, modeled on the concept of drawing hot air out of a high vault and forming a natural current.

	Schematic plan from left to right cistern well Cistern basement and entry level 1st level of rooms 2nd level of rooms roof and dome drums domes and shaft chimneys
Dream on! The cistern looks like a luxury swimming pool. Ok, why not?

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Version 9

This computer model is the one which take the size of available plots most into account. The guesthouse block, rising on a high foundation plinth with cool basement community room below, fits exactly on 1 ground. 1 ground is 15 x 15 meters, or 49 x 49 feet, a footprint of 225 M², or 2,400 sq ft.

With an additional ground there is enough space for a service block, a courtyard flanked by two arcaded wings and a three meter wide front patio. In the service block you would find the apartment of the director, a kitchen with streetside vending, storage rooms, a bathhouse therapy salon, and an office. In one of the side arcades you find a shrine to Kali.

A third ground could give room for a proper garden, which I've shown here with a wall around it. If we are lucky the lot will have beachfront, which will take off some of the "burden" of having a garden.

East, Section	Main Courtyard	Roof plan	aerial looking Northeast
Elevation North	South, Section	Groundplan Section	Elevation East
Perspective West	Kali Shrine

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Version 9 pen sketches

Guesthouse Block

ShangriLa or
Mughal Folly?

Service Block

General Plan

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Version 9 Animation

This external Flash animation, a fly-over of the Shunpiker model version 9, may take a little while to load, but gives a good impression of the volume and scale. Caution: may make you dizzy.

http://www.vanhulzen.com/india/images/still-india9.jpg

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Version 7

Version 7 is an exploration of an interior treatment of a building taking up 2 grounds of space using some modern and some traditional forms. Down the middle of the building is a long courtyard with 2nd story interior veranda, similar to a Roman impluvium. The courtyard is sunk below the level of the 1st floor foundation-plinth and is ringed with ghat-style large steps, suggesting a step well, but in this case serving as a small amphitheatre. In fact, the courtyard functions as an open stage in the Roman / Elizabethan tradition, having a strong architectural backdrop. The main stairs to the 2nd floor are integrated into a 3 story stone tower which functions on its subterranean level as a cistern and on the upper levels as a cool, vaulted bath facility. The desirability of a heated hammam in such a warm climate is questionable.

Rooms are small and comfortable, each having a purposefully tailored mosquito net over the bed and a small traditional wash room. The washroom is served by a shutter niche where hotel employees replenish water in a ewer and bowl, here sprinkled with bergamot and rose-leaves. You can sit on a stone slab and dowse yourself with ladels of water. In this there is plumbing out but no plumbing in.

Enter the Courtyard

View from veranda
of theamphitheatre

Example of Room

Example of a
Washing facility

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Version 6

Version 6 was designed for a plot spanning several grounds and is thus probably impractical. The layout of the rooms, however, has something to say for it. I liked the effect of the receding repeating elements, such as columns and coffered ceilings, which gives a rhythmic effect. However the solution has little "magic", a term I believe which will become one of our keywords.

All Services are contained in the same building. There is a green space around the building, which is probably an inefficient use of space. (I'd rather see the green space used in an interior garden) I imagined the structure being made of concrete components poured into moulds and then infilled with either fired brick or cement block. In any case, this design has a relatively high artiginal quotient, meaning more costs for design details.