URBAN HOTEL
Location: 505 West 19th Street, New York City, New York, USA
Year: 2016
Type: Academic research
Status: Completed study
Institution: California College of the Arts
Role: Sole student designer
Outputs: Research, concepts, models, drawings, diagrams, details, renderings, and prototypes
Image credits: JJ Tan
Professional involvement: Not applicable to this academic project
Urban Hotel explores how air rights, setback requirements, program, and structural systems can shape a hotel beside the High Line. The building is organized around three primary programs: Eat, Sleep, and Play. Each is treated as a distinct spatial system with its own scale, atmosphere, and relationship to the city.
Eat occupies the active street level through a restaurant characterized by movement, sound, and public activity. Sleep consists of hotel rooms arranged around the shared programs. Play introduces spaces such as a dodgeball court, café, yoga studio, and pool. Several of these programs occupy double and triple height volumes, creating large openings within the structure.
The public programs become smaller and quieter as the building rises. A dodgeball court meets the High Line level, while spaces such as the yoga studio and pool occupy the upper floors. The building gradually changes from a relatively square footprint into a slender rectangular floor plate at the top.
A modular steel structure and concrete slab system organize these changing volumes. Along West 19th Street, the building responds to required setbacks. Facing the High Line, its glazed form projects toward the park and acts as an illuminated marker that invites visual engagement from the elevated walkway.