Disruption of the Horizontal

The Structure of the former Sheraton Hotel is threatened by demolition. Its use and late-modernist style have gone out of fashion, leaving behind an idiosyncratic solitaire within the city of Munich. Sitting on a podium, the Building is functionally and morphologically distanced from the urban context by a complex topography of stairs and walls. As a consequence the site appears as a residual space, a void between city and building. In order to enable any successful future reuse of the structure, it first needs to be reconnected to the urban fabric through an adjustment of the ground.

To overcome the isolation of the former Hotel, the proposal claims the Buildings' vast private, isolated underground spaces as an extension for the city's public space. The introduction of a gently sloping piazza redefines the Level -1 as the new Ground floor which is then redesigned as the public face of the structure. Those previous underground levels of the Hotel are then adapted and connected with the other underground spaces on the site to create a new public infrastructure that reaches beyond the original site into the surrounding city. A new pedestrian and cycling artery connects two neighbourhoods, the subway and the train station, combining them with new spaces into a hub of activity and mobility that flows through the base of the building and extends upward, creating a dynamic connection between the urban fabric and the structure itself. Existing ramps and spaces are activated and expanded to allow access to the complete structure from the main path and the outside. The integration of new Courtyards, facades and circulation brings light into the spaces and connects upwards into the Building. The extended cityscape is envisaged as boulevards on which programs can be placed like buildings along a street. Programs are expected to change and evolve. Therefore, the found condition of emptiness, above and below ground, is deliberately not answered by a specific programming. Instead all adjustments to the architectural space seek to introduce new potentials in previously rigid spaces and enable multiple new ways of inhabiting the structure. Thus, transitioning the building out of its first life as an introverted luxury enclave, towards its new life as an welcoming, integrated part of the city that anticipates the area's advancement and acts as a catalyst for it.