CMU Campus Hotel
Part of the Responsibility while designing this hotel for the Carnegie Mellon University was to design the masterplan as well. The solution was the new CIC2 building, which is an addition to the existing CIC1 Office building, along with the hotel and retail function as a portal to the Carnegie Mellon Campus. As a result, the most optimum massing with respect to solar orientation, topography, and other relating site factors was the V shape, with the western wing consisting of 6 floors including lobby and the eastern phase consisting of 3 floors.
The atrium between the two wings of the hotel behaves as a knuckly, which also enables views to the valley beyond and the rest of the Carnegie Mellon Campus. The ground floor of the hotel is designed to encourage pedestrian access and interactions, such that the pedestrian access from the courtyard as well as the visitors arriving through the vehicular entry on Craig Street extension, both intersect in the lobby. The layout of the hotel room is decided to create a sense of opennes in the room.
Since this was a Systems Integration Studio, special attention was given to the systems present in the hotel. The mechanical system for the rooms are placed over the bathrooms. Fresh air is channelled to the system via ducts running in the hallway, while hot and cold supply is from the geothermal plant on the site. The air is then passed through the walls and into the floor and supplied through ducts. The return vent is placed in the ceiling to maximize the flow of the air through the room.