FORM / STUDIO

06 / 12Antwerp, BelgiumHospitality2024

Maison 17

Nine rooms in a nineteenth-century house. Each is planned around a bath, a bed and one window.

A hotel bed beneath a dark pendant lamp, with a rust-coloured headboard wall.

A small hotel where the corridor had to give up width to the bathrooms. The result is a dim, narrow approach that opens into rooms with more air and more colour than the footprint suggests.

Location
Antwerp, Belgium
Year
2024
Project type
Hospitality
Status
Completed
Surface area
486 m²
Scope
Interior architecture, nine guest rooms, ground-floor bar
Lighting
Bureau L. (fictional)
Services
Bureau S. (fictional)

Fictional project. Photographs are illustrative stock and do not show a building by FORM Studio.

Brief

Nine rooms had to make the numbers work in a building that could comfortably hold seven. The early plans were all compromises until the bathrooms moved to the corridor side of each room and borrowed its width. Rooms gained a clear view from door to window. The corridor lost 40 centimetres, then became a deliberately quiet, low-lit passage.

D01Ground floorPlanIllustrative drawing
Ground floor: illustrative floor planIllustrative plan of about 12.00 by 10.00 metres containing Reception, Bar, Breakfast room, Kitchen, Back of house. The numbered key beside the drawing lists each room.123455.004.003.0012.004.002.004.00AAN05 m
  1. 1Reception18.9 m²
  2. 2Bar40.5 m²
  3. 3Breakfast room28.7 m²
  4. 4Kitchen15.1 m²
  5. 5Back of house11.2 m²
D02Typical guest floorPlanIllustrative drawing
Typical guest floor: illustrative floor planIllustrative plan of about 12.00 by 10.00 metres containing Room 1, Room 2, Corridor, Room 3, Stair core, Room 4. The numbered key beside the drawing lists each room.1234564.801.201.404.6012.004.801.303.90N05 m
  1. 1Room 127.5 m²
  2. 2Room 227.5 m²
  3. 3Corridor14.0 m²
  4. 4Room 317.7 m²
  5. 5Stair core9.4 m²
  6. 6Room 416.9 m²

Colour

Each floor has its own pigment: clay on the first, ochre on the second, a dull green on the third. Guests never compare them, but the housekeeping team does. The colour tells staff which floor a linen trolley belongs on.

An ochre plaster wall in warm light with a wall lamp and a dark timber dado.
Fig. 1 Room 3. Ochre plaster stops at a dark timber dado.
A bathroom with a long pale stone vanity, an arched mirror and a black pendant.
Fig. 2 Bathroom, room 1. The vanity is one piece of stone on an oak carcass.
A pale stone vanity, a black pendant and an arched mirror under a rooflight.
Fig. 3 Vanity and pendant.
A walk-in shower lined in pale stone tile with a black rain head and a lit niche.
Fig. 4 Walk-in shower, room 4.
A narrow bathroom with an oak vanity, stone top and timber-effect wall tiles.
Fig. 5 Oak, limestone, recessed light.
D03Section A–ASectionIllustrative drawing
Section A–A: illustrative sectionIllustrative section cut through the building, 12.7 metres to the highest point, with the retained structure shown in grey.Breakfast roomGuest roomGuest room-2.40+0.00+3.60+6.60+9.6005 m■ Retained ■ New
A dim room with a paper pendant, a low shelf and a clothes rail with objects on display.
Fig. 6 Ground floor, between reception and bar: a shelf of things that are for sale.

Material schedule

  1. M01

    Pigmented plaster

    Guest rooms, ochre and clay

    Colour in the mix, not on the surface, so chips and repairs stay invisible in a room in constant use.

  2. M02

    Limestone

    Vanity tops, shower floors

    Thick, honed and without a visible edge detail. Maintenance is a yearly seal.

  3. M03

    Rift oak

    Vanities, wall linings

    Used where hands and luggage land. Corners are rounded by the joiner at the point of contact.