Aristide Antonas | Hotel Bus

in Concept & Competition by editor — 2:50 pm | March 2, 20120 comments

A two levels bus is transformed to a small moving hotel. A “bed and breakfast” space is installed in an existing double-deck bus structure. The bus can be used by small communities that have to commute or work together when traveling for any reason. It can also accept dwellers in places that will be visited for a short period or where no reception infrastructure exists, when such places are chosen by a group of people to be visited for a short period. The project concerns the transformation of an existing vehicle. The interior program of the bus includes 7 beds, a water closet and a living room. The vehicle can be the double decker of any type.

A peculiar meeting of two concrete conditions is central in this project: the typical normal double deck bus and a bed and breakfast hostel. Each of them independently organizes a stable, banal function; together they construct an idiosyncratic hybrid. The proposed conceptual distortion is regulated through two different strategies. “The platform strategy” and “the strategy of collage”.

In order that the bus functions as a platform it is emptied. Its emptying and its occupancy with characteristic pieces organize functions. The platform is a peculiar function of emptiness. The platform is the possibility of an occupation by objects. The platform in this case is occupied by beds, coaches and the pieces that constitute a bathroom. It will be regulated as a series of introduced furniture. The position of things organizes the idiosyncratic collage.

The strategy of collage is structured by the co-existence of the chosen objects that occupy the empty space. We see already how such a space could be inhabited. Emptiness is the prerequisite of this characterization, performed finally by a selection of objects. The “collage strategy” functions in a quasi invisible manner. No change from the normal condition of a bus is recorded at the exterior view of the bus.

Architect: Aristide Antonas [ with the collaboration of Katerina Koutsogianni ]

Project Name: Hotel Bus