Dubbeldam Design Architects

A permanent installation in the historic Gladstone Hotel and won by international competitive award, the goal of the design of hotel room 411 Offset was to maintain the inherited conditions of the restored Victorian shell and insert a contemporary architectural installation with a complementary material palette. The installation was conceived as a cross-section through the primary planes of the building – walls, ceiling, and floor – and is represented in two “wrapping” architectural expressions that are an organizational device for all the programmatic requirements of a hotel room. An element of skeletal construction echoes the structural framework of the room and wraps vertically around the space, supporting a floating bed plane, side tables and desk surface, and creates, in a sense, a room within a room.

Another plane wraps horizontally about the walls of the room in the form of a continuous strip of light incorporating three separate programmatic lighting components: task, bedside, and general room lighting. This light band, taking its datum from a 13″ high solid infill panel between the existing historic windows, replaces the lost light with artificial light. This allows for soft, diffuse light throughout the day and permits the artificial light to co-exist with the natural light, becoming both an architectural and atmospheric element within the space of the room. Every new element has a relationship to the physical parameters of the hotel room, from the lighting and furniture elements to the mirrors, bed cover and even garbage bin, all of which reflect a physical measure of the space itself.

Project Details & Credits

Location: Toronto
Completion: 2005
Size: 210 s.f.
Project Team: Heather Dubbeldam and Tania Ursomarzo as Joint Venture
Contractor: DDF European Design with Kobi’s Cabinets (millwork)
Photography: Tom Arban, Heather Dubbeldam