area 103+ | extra ordinary

architect: Concrete

location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands

year: 2008

CitizenM is a new Dutch hotel group that opens their first hotel at Schiphol Airport in the second quarter of 2008. The concept of the hotel is to cut out all hidden costs and remove all unnecessary items, in order to provide it guests a luxery feel for a budget price. The hotel exists of 230 rooms of 14 sqm, all prefabricated produced in citizenM’s own factory and easy to transport. The rooms are stacked on a ground floor with a dynamic lobby/living-room space. Since citizenM believes a great bed and a simple and clean bathroom is all we need during a city or business trip, the design is focused on these items. CitizenM wants to expand the concept by building over 20 hotels the coming years, all with the room-module as building block. The second hotel will be build in Amsterdam near the south-axis, the third one in Glasgow. Other big European cities are investigated right now. Concrete created the concept of citizenM as a holistic plan that would set the boundaries for every creative process and output in all disciplines involved. A red glass box with electronic sliding doors allows entrance to the hotel. The hotel does not have a service desk but a table with six self-check-in terminals. One of citizenM’s hosts is present to guide you through the incheck-procedure. The public area of the ground floor is divided in several areas that we like to call living rooms. Our purpose is to create a home-environment, by designing working areas, dining areas and sitting areas. It creates a second home away from home for the visitors. The rooms are designed in cooperation with Vitra, using their furniture collection only. This allows citizenM and Vitra to switch furniture from time to time, creating a real-life showroom. The bed stands in front of a floor to ceiling, wall to wall window and is super-king size, 2,2 x 2,0 m, it offers a lounge area to watch TV on the flat LCD screen. Underneath the bed is a huge drawer to store an opened suitcase or other personal belongings. Sockets in the bed-front make it possible to connect your laptop or telephone. To create maximal space, the items from the bathroom are separately placed in the room. Two big glass cylinders contain the shower and the toilet, a small Corian cylinder contains the washbasin and extra space for storage. The building is a black metal box, dominated by the pushed out big glass windows of the rooms. The various depths of the aluminum frames and the angled glass give an individual twist to the rigid façade. CitizenM wants to contribute also to it’s cultural environment. Two huge art works, printed on pvc mesh fabric are placed on the façade. The works are made by a local talented artist, but within a few years they will travel from one hotel façade to the other.

architect Concrete www.concreteamsterdam.nl
project team Rob Wagemans, Erikjan Vermeulen, Jeroen Vester, Erik van Dillen, Matthijs Hombergen, Sofie Ruytenberg
client CitizenM
surface 6000 sqm
year 2007-2008
photo Richard Powers, Ewout Huibers