An uncomplicated hotel for active guests, a place for people who like to keep on the move and appreciate design: that was the plan for this new hotel set next to the cable car station in the Engadine winter sports resort of Savognin. The focus was to be on exchange and encounter in the form of spacious communal areas for eating and meeting, resting and relaxing and there was also to be a spatial and functional link between these public areas and the guestrooms. The rooms themselves had to be simple and space-saving. After all, there’s really only one thing the hotel’s sporting guests need at the end of a long day – a bed.

The four-storey cube sits like an ice crystal in the mountain landscape, which is reflected back to the viewer from the glass facade. Built as a steel-framed structure with modular components, the interior is designed for informal socialising with generous lounges, a restaurant and snug with open fire on the ground floor and a club bar and fitness spaces in the basement. Ramps set around the central atrium lead to the upper floors, which house the guestrooms. Compact and minimalist in design, they all come with access to a “showroom”, a transparent, lockable storage space for equipment such as snowboards and bicycles located just before the rooms themselves. 

An urban atmosphere in a mountain landscape – a skilful balancing act
The walls and ceilings in raw concrete, exposed service ducts, coloured glass panels on supports, balustrades and corridor walls and leather furniture in the lounges offer a mix that lends the hotel a loft feel. The facade is also multi-layered: an outer shell of satinised glass serves as a screen for projections and provides sun and privacy shielding for the inner glass façade, the real thermal envelope.