Scan Magazine | Special Theme | Nordic Architecture & Design Special – Denmark
Scandic Spectrum.
Creating vibrant urban life through sustainable hotels Designing hotels comes with a great responsibility – at least for architecture firm DISSING+WEITLING, who strive to make their hotels sustainable and interactive with the surrounding areas in a way that creates an attractive, vibrant urban life. By Nicolai Lisberg | Photos: DISSING+WEITLING architecture
When it comes to designing hotels, the vision is clear for DISSING+WEITLING. They aim to create a high level of comfort for guests and visitors with an inviting building that contributes to creating vibrant urban surroundings wrapped in a highly sustainable structure. The Copenhagen-based architecture firm has designed several hotels over the years, always with the same ideals. Regardless of scale, they aim to make their hotels as green as possible with qualities that will benefit the hotel and its guests as well as the city and the area they are located in. 50 | Issue 105 | October 2017
Take, for instance, Scandic Spectrum, which DISSING+WEITLING is working on at the moment. Scandic Hotels has numerous hotels in the Nordic countries, but the Scandic Spectrum in Copenhagen, expected to open in 2021, will become their biggest so far. It will have 632 rooms, several restaurants for both guests and visitors, a café, a bakery, a sky bar, a fitness centre, large meeting and conference facilities and underground parking. “When we design a hotel, we look at the bigger picture and try to deliver the full
package. A hotel needs to be sustainable, but it also needs to have an architectural identity and interact with the surrounding areas. We believe that Scandic Spectrum does all those things,” says Daniel Hayden, partner and architect at DISSING+WEITLING.
Creating an open and inviting hotel A series of decisions, such as the utilisation of a solar panel roof, using an active double façade and the careful utilisation of daylight, have been taken to give the hotel a green profile. The glass façade also helps to create a connection to the other exciting new architecture in the former industrial harbour area. The ambition for DISSING+WEITLING was to create a very open and inviting hotel, where the ground floor opens up