This project involves a 160-room hotel operated by UDS Ltd. under the theme of a "public house in the city." The site is halfway up the slope from Shibuya to Aoyama, literally the midpoint between the valley and the hill. In front of the site is Mitake Park. Here we set out to create a hotel with a welcoming public atmosphere that embraces people's unrestrained behaviors and noises, echoing the park environment.

Meanwhile, the client gave us a keyword, "public house," from which the word "pub" comes. It was also an inspiring keyword that evoked the image of a hotel lobby actively extending outwards to the city. The hotel should not remain self-contained and closed on its grounds but should exude outwards, like public spaces or parks. Someone's ordinary life is extraordinary for others. With this in mind, we set out to create a place where everyone enjoys Shibuya's everyday life, including locals, travelers, and businesspeople.

Instead of a grand hotel entrance, we wanted a more open and versatile front that people could use flexibly in multiple ways. Based on the straightforward reason that good ventilation would be essential in the post-Covid19 era, we decided to open all the doors even before finalizing the tenants.

When DDAA joined the project, they had planned the terrace on the first floor as a hotel entrance. To create a scene where people can gather and hang out everywhere, we took advantage of the slope's difference in elevation to place step benches, flower beds, planting strips, and even the hotel sign, allowing people to put down their coffee or beer and have a good time there. Key elements in creating the atmosphere of all day place shibuya are the first-floor tenants, a Danish craft beer bar and bottle shop and a Japanese specialty coffee shop.

Our first instinct was that the outside atmosphere would be the key to this hotel, so we decided to use materials that would allow the open, park-like atmosphere to continue directly into the interior spaces. Given that the materials we could use were limited to those that could be used continuously from the terrace at the entrance to the interior, preferably to the bathrooms in the suites at the far end of the top floor, we finally decided to use tiles as the primary material. The tiles were custom-fired in Tajimi, Gifu Prefecture, and the color was adjusted using an original glaze.

In keeping with the hotel's concept, our design is based on the idea of the "extraordinary use of everyday materials" throughout the hotel. For example, we used melamine-faced plywood, a common material, for the hotel rooms. We often see this material in supermarkets, convenience stores, and commercial facilities. We designed all furniture and fixtures in the rooms using only a single material, melamine-faced plywood with rough-cut edges exposed, which is not only cost-effective but also easy to clean and maintain.