Kyriad Hotel by Kilo Architectures

An assortment of windows are randomly scattered across the timber facade of this budget hotel outside Le Mans, France.

Paris studio Kilo Architectures designed the Kyriad Hotel, which also features an asymmetrical pitched metal roof.

The positioning of windows on the facade has no relation to rooms inside, so windows in certain rooms are at ankle-height, whilst others skim the ceiling.

The hotel is located on the racing circuit where renowned motor competition 24 Hours of Le Mans takes place. Last year’s race included a colourful art-covered car by artist Jeff Koons, which you can read more about here.

Photography is by David Boureau.

Here’s some information from the architects:

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Kyriad, Virage Mulsanne, Le Mans 2011

On the circuit of the world’s oldest sports car race, the 24 hours of Le Mans, this project addresses questions of architectural scale and ‘speed.’ Architectural speed is the manner or rate at which a building is viewed or experienced. For this project, the high velocity at which this building will most frequently be viewed led us to compose an ‘elevation of motion’ wherein the facade is designed to be regarded in accelerated motion.

In order to break the homogeneity present in most economic hotel buildings, multiple horizontal windows were scattered over the facade in order to obfuscate the scale and nature of the building. The scale of the building is not immediately clear, and the repetition and rhythm of the rooms within are impossible to read from the facade. In addition, the playful placement of windows renders every room unique; some rooms have windows on the floor or at the line of the ceiling, and every room benefits from a unique framing of the world outside.

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• Architecture