Entry number: OC07017
Project Name: INN
Location: 3700 Las Vegas Blvd.
Building Type: Hotel
Completion Date: N/A
Architecture Student:  Glenn Curry

Sustainability Description

Narrative/Project Description:
The design approach of this project was to design a hotel that challenges conventional/conforming issues in hotel design.

This project was originally a Master's Thesis Project, in which there was a research paper portion followed by a project developed from concepts and conclusions of the research portion.

Within the past 20 years, there has been a distinction from the corporate "chain" hotel market in America in the form of a small, niche market of hotels, which are socially, visually, and geographically different from their "corporate" peers.

Inns and boarding-houses were the origins of the hotel. The "grand" hotels in Europe evolved from the inns and boarding-houses in the following several hundreds of years. These "grand" hotels were created to meet the demand by a certain "higher" social and economical class for a place not only to sleep, but also to express status through "luxury," and the ability to escape everyday life. These attributes of the "grand" hotel and its clientele were directly influential on their design.

Because of consumerism today, the ideas of nonconformity and relinquishment of convention morphs into an idea of mass appeal almost as fast as the idea itself is conceived. Therefore, in order to constantly disrupt convention, the idea is constantly changing. This concept is apparent in the distinction of the "boutique" hotels from the corporate chain hotels, but because of the transitory nature of the values that determine what are "hip" and/or "cool", the nonconformity of the "boutique" hotel is quickly becoming conventional. Their nonconforming characteristics are stagnant, waiting for consumerism to transform it into a convention. A space that can be as transitory as the values that describe and define is a space that is never stagnant. A space that employs the ability to shift its "image" can become a space that can constantly disrupt convention.

Las Vegas employs this concept on mostly a micro-level (common with the renovation and reinvention of many interior spaces, and also a macro-level as the city that constantly reinvents itself. Relatively new buildings get demolished and replaced by newer ones. What if there was a building that can feasibly become newer by the second? Could that building ever be considered conventional?

This project not only challenges conventional methods of an entry process and spacial layouts in hotel design, but also investigates possibilities of constant flux through its modular, double frame, where parts and pieces can be easily `changed' out.

Sustainability Description:
Site selection played an integral role in the development of the sustainability issues of this project. Rather than emulate the current trends of the mega-resorts of Las Vegas, which occupy large 100+ acre city blocks and generally create a slew of voids and pockets in the urban fabric, the site for INN was chosen to fill a void created by the bordering Bellagio and the proposed Cosmopolitan and City Center sites.

The north-south orientation of the rooms not only allows clear views up and down Las Vegas Blvd, but also takes advantage of natural day lighting.

The proposed Cosmopolitan directly to the south of the site would provide shade for much of the INN's south facade, especially in the afternoon.

The tower's main elevator lobby protects much of the tower's west facade.

The tower's 'double frame' allows for endless possibilities of room configurations to maximize shading (especially on the south facade) and also possibilities of passive cooling through heat chimneys. Also it creates a modular system for feasible remodels and renovations with minimal construction waste material.