PROJECTS: 1 York Hotel

LOCATION: St Louis, MO 

SIZE: 120,000 sq ft 

SCOPE: Architecture 

STATUS: Proposed 

DESCRIPTION: 

The site of a new 100-key hotel is located near the largest park in St Louis, Missouri: Forest Park. Although this is an attractive location for guests, it is located on an alleyway that is crisscrossed with easements and parking needs. Moreover, the site does not have direct accessibility or views to the Park. Since we could not bring the guests to the Park, why not bring the Park to the guests?  

By raising the 1st level up, we were able to separate the building volume from the easement and parking conditions at the ground level. We further separated the volume of the public amenities from that of the private hotel rooms, the resulting space in between creates a shared public and private “eventspace”. And by planting the exposed surfaces of both these volumes to create a hotel with a private “pocket garden” for each guest room and a shared, elevated “garden eventspace” that connects the restaurant, gym, and spa amenities---we have brought the park to you at 1 York.