Chic Brutality: Exploring the Calile Hotel's urban oasis

The Calile Hotel is an urban resort which balances a quietly brutal aesthetic with humour and charm.

The 175-room hotel is the most significant of the built work produced by Richards and Spence in the James Street Precinct, an open-air street based development 2.5 km from Brisbane’ CBD.

GALLERY  

Over the last decade, the practice has been involved in a series of individual projects which establishes a new local streetscape identity as the setting for a curated open-air retail and hospitality precinct.

Referencing an existing scale, double height brick arches perform a civic role at ground level, cloistering shoppers and framing retail identities. Like its neighbours – The Calile Hotel is predominantly white brick, stone & expressed concrete and the journey from lobby to pool cabana is a continuous outdoor experience.

Taking best advantage of the Queensland weather, a podium level pool terrace transports guests to holiday mode. Hidden from the street, the pool terrace is an otherworldly experience of fluttering palm trees and striped canvas umbrellas flanking a spacious swimming pool. Conceived as elevated streets, hotel corridors continue the outdoor experience naturally ventilated with ceiling fans via customised breeze block screens. Significant planting extends across the project, a verdant overlay linking streets to rooms.

Hotel room balconies contemplate the pool below and allow for natural breezes. A subtle transition from travertine, cork is introduced internally as an acoustic surface that is soft underfoot. Overlaid with stone and solid timber, the rooms speak to a long-term ambition for the project, a timeless aesthetic requiring minimal maintenance. The Calile Hotel is a new destination for a quiet capital city, demonstrating both civic ambition and a dignified setting for hot weather civility.

Images by Sean Fennessy via ArchDaily

How minds, workspaces and BRITA help the future of productivity! It is the year 2035. Though hybrid working is ...

Positioned just moments from the coastline, Seafoam by Nadine K Design and Lambert Building Group captures the essence ...

How clean lines and seamless transitions are shaping modern interiors In contemporary architecture, minimalism is no longer about starkness ...

Situated in the heart of Adelaide, Press* Food & Wine stands as a true culinary institution, delighting guests ...

A South Australian icon is being reimagined for a new era, with JPE Design Studio leading a major ...