Generic Hotel is an essay exploring the idea of generic and specific through a hotel design in Doha.

“Generic is highly specific when we look at the situation “now”, and the specificity becomes generic when the time frame extends to a longer period.”

The mixed-use hotel in Doha is loaded with collective programs like gallery, black box theater, lecture hall, fitness center, swimming pools and garden; and individual programs like the hotel rooms. The general difference between various programs is size and publicity. The arch as a structural unit is generic: proportions of which is determined by the generic sizes of the programs, where big spaces are placed in the middle, and small spaces on two sides. The specificity of each program causes the arches to have varying configurations with little permutations. The deployment of programs is informed by the structure. The structure then becomes not generic.

The application of a regular grid on the structural unit is generic. The connecting patterns of the arches varies in each repeating unit (every four floors) to create variations in spaces and to enhance the overall structural stability of the building. Load paths of the structure go back to the grid as the vertical elements of the arches stay at the same place throughout the building.

The arches, as both columns and beams, determine the quality of spaces. The visitor is constantly interacting with the structure in different way when one tran-scends from one floor to another. There is a gradually revealed experience of what the arches are transformed to.

The ground is a teaser of the spaces in the building. Located in the middle plot of the site, the visitors walk through the collection of desert plants from the exterior to the covered garden enclosed by the arches above. The primary structure of arches are previewed with the primitive landscape.



On the hotel room floors, the columns are continued by wall extensions that create special entrances for the rooms. On the public program floors, arches are expressed with small double height rooms connecting to the floor below. On the top floor of the public programs, one can experience the arches by directly walking through the openings of the structure, viewing the working process of artists in their studio and the finished version in the exhibition simultaneously.

The retreated balconies within the hotel rooms and the exterior grounds within the collective programs create a brie soleil condition on the south side of the building, thus screens out the intensive heat during the day while allowing natural light to enter the space. Patches of exterior space intrude the void of the big public program and create extra layer of interaction between the exterior and interior.
The facade is a layer of lightweight patterned Dryvit panels as a wrapped skin on all elevations. Seemingly a monolithic block with vertical striations (when the arches meet the edge of the building) during the day, at night the arches are revealed when the interior lights shine through the public floors and exterior grounds. The hotel becomes multiple bands of arches floating in the air.


THESIS
Tower as both critical and projective diagram

The tower as a critical diagram

The building takes a position of the critical diagram in the current situation. It is a response to the environmental and cultural conditions of the site.

In the environmental side, climate of Doha is hot and dry, with intensive high-angle sunlight during the day. Most part of the building has to be insulated to avoid the heat. Programs situated on the south side of the building have varying degrees of retreated space. A brie soleil condition is created with 1.5 meters deep retreated balconies within the hotel rooms (small scale) and 8 meters deep exterior grounds within the collective programs (large scale), thus screens out the intensive heat during the day while allowing natural light to enter the space. The west side of the building is completely covered with the side core.

In the cultural side, as stated in the first part, the current hotel surplus in Doha suggests that the program of the mixed-use hotel is very likely to be changed. The project has taken the issue of time into consideration and proposed a timeless ar-chitecture. The architecture has to be generic to suit the transformation over time – a structure that could adapt to all the possibilities is needed. Arches are used as the major element of the rigid framework. With the big programs in the center and small programs on the two sides, and the core that is set on one side, the space is flexible for future use.

The tower as a projective schema

In the future, however, when we look at a longer time frame, the building takes a position of the projective diagram. While the structure remains unchanged, the life of the city penetrates through the building when there is a change in programs of the building. The city is not reflected back to the city itself (Seagram building), but rather absorbed in the structure, i.e. the mass media is absorbed in the building. The diagram of (generalized) big and small programs suggest the future.

APOLOGIA
In defense of the “Generic”

It is anticipated for an inevitable decline of Doha as oil-producing country and cultural hub of the Middle East region in the future. Oil will be depleted and resources will be exhausted. Qatarians can no longer be as wealthy as they are today. Culture, on the other hand, could not be injected into the country by building a lot of galleries and museums. Culture is the gradual accumulation of human livelihoods and cannot be bought over using monetary medium. Doha would not be successfully converted into a cultural hub if Qatarians continue to purchase paintings from other countries, but not using the time and effort to conserve and develop their own culture of the Middle East. Hence a change in the current program is expected since the beginning of the project. The death of the building is anticipated before its birth.

The building is highly specific in the current time frame. The arches become specific, as the structure are influenced by both the generic identity (size and publicity) and the specific identity (what each program is) of the programs. The flexibility generated through the arches is therefore also specific.

However, when anticipated and unanticipated transformation happened over a longer period of time, the flexibility of space becomes generic as the constant change in programs becomes a repeating pattern. The arches also become generic in a sense that it is a recurring identity from the Roman period, the Gothic period, the Renaissance period, etc.

Generic is highly specific when we look at the situation “now”, and the specificity becomes generic when the time frame extends to a longer period. ︎