Setting the stage for the regeneration of a town center in Singapore, Casa Gardens introduces a highly efficient, but equally elegant, hotel product offering micro-units that is unprecedented in the local market.
Utilizing a unique typology, in combination with considerations of the site’s required setback and maximum heights, the building takes a rectangular slab floor plate configuration and shifts it to create an elongated rhombus. The result is an increase in the number of corner windows, which are available in 70% of the rooms. Each room is conceived as an independent, cabin-like structure, with built-in furniture to reduce visual clutter. Hotel guests can control the degree of daylight and privacy in their rooms through sliding shutters, a signature feature of traditional Singaporean architecture. Additionally, the east-west orientation of the building minimizes solar heat gain. At the east end of every level, guests can access a communal terrace a short distance from their room, providing a sense of residential living to a short-term stay destination.
The façade of Casa Gardens is an expression of both a concrete superstructure blended with the individual wood clad cabins on the room modules. The building maximizes its site by elevating the 10-story hotel above a neighboring retail center to optimize the view from the guestrooms. With the ground plane open, the team created a covered dedicated car drop-off and, one floor up, a reception and amenity space at the main floating level. In addition to amenities such as an infinity pool and a bar and lounge, guests can access a pedestrian bridge that connects to the MRT and retail center.
