Nest Hotel (2014)
Project Owner: Nest Hotel Incheon
www.nesthotel.co.kr

Nest Hotel Your Own Hideout 

2014.12.29 | JOH & Company

Nest Hotel, the first hotel project launched by JOH, opened in last October after two and a half years of preparation. Located near the Incheon International Airport in Yeongjongdo Island, Nest Hotel is a five-star hotel equipped with 370 suites for guests, a restaurant, a banquet hall, a lounge and a fitness center. JOH led all creative aspect throughout the project such as branding, architectural design, space design, interior décor and design directing. The hotel acquired the nation’s first Design Hotels membership. ‘Design Hotels’ is a global hotel platform that has selected unique hotels around the world based on its strict standards, and is consists of 250 hotels from almost 50 countries around the world.

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designhotels
Design Hotels, a global hotel platform, has selected only hotels that satisfy its strict standards in aesthetic, concepts, and the completion of architecture and design. Only 5-6% of applicant hotels around the world acquires memberships every year.

Beginning from the story of the location

We saw a vast field of naturally grown reeds on the site for Nest Hotel, when we had been there for the first time in the summer 2012. Everything constituting the view—the taking off and landing of airplanes, the panoramas of sunrise and sunset on the far-off horizon, and the silhouettes of small islands with tang of the salty sea air-was beautiful and nostalgic in a way it reminds us of the long forgotten memories of traveling.

Naturally, the story of Nest Hotel had begun with this impressive landscape: we set the reeds grown on the hotel site as the dominating motif for our brand and architecture. We embodied the speculation and the peacefulness of the reeds into the identity of the hotel, and designed a vertical-shaped building made of materials that are harmonized with the natural surroundings.

Prior to the formulation of the new hotel project, the project owner and JOH had shared a common goal of setting up a meaningful example that is realized when capital meets good creative directions, rather than a hotel that follows the logic of capital. The hotel project therefore allowed JOH to have the full-fledged ownership of the creative aspects, and maintained the site-specific narratives until it was completed.

ReedImage
The concept of Nest hotel was spontaneously developed from the natural landscape of Yeongjongdo island. The speculation and the peacefulness of the reeds directed the value orientation of the hotel, which is to create a space that blends itself into the natural landscape, not a spectacular and intimidating piece of architecture.
Pinehill
nightview
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Architectural sketches in the early stage of the project. The emphasis was on the vertical shape of the building that harmonizes itself with the surroundings.

A hideout for contemporary people

Bill gates goes into seclusion for a ‘Think Weekend’ in private cottage to conceive of a future strategy; Warren Buffett spends some time alone in a room without computers prior to the critical decision-making for investment. They both understand the need for a ‘creative pause’, the silent hours to concentrate solely on themselves.

We tried to redefine the meaning of ‘rest’ a hotel can afford, and thought about how Nest Hotel could become a destination of the travel, not merely an airport hotel that offers a brief moment of rest during the journey. For people like us who are tired of the speed of urban spaces, excessive amount of information, and of the networked relationships, ‘rest’ meant the undisturbed hours to think about ourselves. The hotel surrounded by a calmness of sky, sea and forest is only a 40-minute ride from the very center of Seoul; a perfect destination for a creative pause.

The name ‘Nest’ reminds of a safe shelter made of weaved reeds, an incubating place for creative ideas. We chose the word ‘hideout’ to express our ideas of the hotel. Even if it’s hard for most of us to have a private cottage of our own, we can at least have a hideout for ourselves.

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entrance

One Room is One Nest

The core value of Nest Hotel can be summarized into the word ‘an individual.’ The space, design, service are prepared to make an individual guest feel respected, and to offer him a time to concentrate on himself.

To realize our core value, we began from designing the archetype of a suite room, and completed the overall structure of the building by stacking up the archetypes we’d made. We turned up the position of windows diagonally so as to the sunlight could reach the deepest corner of the building, and the diagonal position of the windows creates the unique exterior of Nest hotel. The shadows reflected on the diagonal walls relieve the cold impression created by exposed mass concrete, while different colors and patterns of the curtains hung over each window of the 370 suites enriches the outside look of the hotel with vividness.

Sketch
Sketches for deluxe rooms. Apart from the conventional layouts for a hotel room, the spaces was divided according to the guests’ movement inside the room.
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The bed in the deluxe room faces the window and the backside of the headboard is used as a desk. It extends to a sofa that fits perfectly in the space, until it creates a small sitting room inside the suite.
Patio Suites
네스트호텔에서는 서해의 일출과 일몰을 모두 볼 수 있다. 파티오 스위트 Patio Suites는 가장 인상적인 풍광을 만끽할 수 있는 객실로, 개방감을 극대화한 테라스와 연결되어 작은 규모의 파티를 즐길 수 있다.
Reed Suite
Reed Suites are partly finished with Hinoki Cyprus, and it has a comfortable bathtub for those who want to relax in every meaning of the word.
paper
From furniture and small objects to the printed matters and consumable goods, everything provided inside the room are carefully chosen according to the brand concept of Nest Hotel.

Often, hotel rooms have to fit in the already designed structure of the hotel; or, sometimes the characteristic features of each hotel is diminished for the sake of the outstanding exterior design. However, the architecture design for Nest Hotel had been developed with the individual rooms as its centers. Hotel rooms are where our guests spend the most of time, therefore they are the symbolic ‘nests’ for our guests who seek for their own hideouts in Nest Hotel.

Whereas the rooms are deliberately divided upon the consideration of subtlest movements and the journey of sunlight, communal spaces such as lobby, lounge and banquet hall are designed to minimize unnecessary element and maximize the beauty of material and structure. Although not so many of our guests noticed, one of the most distinctive features of the Nest Hotel’s design was to make a space for our staffs in the front area of the hotel. The decision reflects the hotel’s philosophy of treating the workers with respect if we want them to provide our guests with heartfelt services.

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High waffle ceiling and cross columns make the first impression of Nest Hotel. The space of bare materiality without any decorative element brings our guests back to a peculiar moment of past at the very moment they step inside the lobby area.
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The Kunst Lounge located on the lobby floor is a mixed-use space where you can enjoy snacks or enjoy exhibition and performances, which producing the cultural contents of the hotel.
platz_r
레스토랑 더 플라츠 The Platz. 모든 좌석에서 경치를 즐길 수 있도록 바다를 향해 전면을 유리로 마감하고 계단식으로 공간을 구성했다. '플라츠'는 독일어로 '광장'을 뜻한다.
Baum Hall
Baum Hall, a banquet hall that accommodates up to 600 persons.
Sauna
The open air bath with sauna is a calm and peaceful place secluded from outside

A place as the source of inspiration

Nest Hotel began with the mission of providing our guests in the contemporary world with the experience of relaxation and inspiration through the natural landscape and cultural contents. With the help of Thanks Books, an independent bookstore, we’ve made a collection of more than 1000 books of literature, art and how-to stockred in the lobby lounge accessible to everyone. We’ve implemented residency programs through the collaboration with artists or designer’s brands that support creative works as continuous project.

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Bookshelves in The Kunst Lounge.
garden
Nest Garden boasts for its freshness all season. Guests can enjoy a garden party in the garden located between the restaurant and the banquet hall.

We’ve made a lawn garden, a trail, a jogging course and a waterside park for our guests who want to experience nature inside and outside of the building. The unique landscape architecture will be elevated with the collaborated work between the holding company of Nest Hotel Incheon who has been owning and operating a golf course for long, and GCH, a global landscaping firm. Facilities, objects and even the smallest amenity items used in the hotel are designed or selected according to the original guidelines provided by JOH; the guests’ experience of Nest brand is enhanced with objects in natural colors and textures, and the graphic element in refined designs.

Even though ‘boutique hotels’ is widespread and people tend to prefer small distinctive hotels, it’s not at all a small task for a hotel to acquire points of difference at the fundamental level. It is due to the nature of hospitality business; there are market expectations and existing principles that are already qualified or standardized. In this regard, Design Hotels focuses on philosophy and originality of the candidate hotel, not on the outstanding design elements. If many of our customers recall Nest Hotel as a distinctive place worth visiting after a reasonable period of time, that must be because they could appreciate the philosophy and narrative embodied in the Nest brand rather than its deliberate design and layout of the space.

Lighting
Corridor
Signage
Quotes
Goodbye
Client
Nest Hotel Incheon

Creative Direction
JOH&Company
Branding
Brand Development – JOH&Company
Verbal & Visual Identity Design – JOH&Company
Space Programming – JOH&Company
Signage & Environmental Graphic – JOH&Company
OS&E Planning & Design – JOH&Company
Graphic Design – JOH&Company, studio:b
Art Consulting – JOH&Company, g_exhibition, Curation Square
Artists – Lee KwangHo, Jin SeungYoun, Chae MeeJi
Architecture
Concept Design & Schematic Design – JOH&Company
Design Development & Construction Documentation – Kunwon
Design Directing(on-site) – JOH&Company
Interior
Concept Design & Schematic Design – JOH&Company
Design Development & Construction Documentation – DAEHYE Interior & Architecture
Design Directing(on-site) – JOH&Company
Landscape
Concept Design & Schematic Design – JOH&Company, GCH Seattle
Design Development & Construction Documentation – TALLTREE
Lighting
Lighting Design – JOH&Company, MALTANI
Furniture
Furniture, Fixtures & Equipment Design – JOH&Company, DAEHYE Interior & Architecture
Construction
Construction Supervision – Dongwoo E&C
Construction – DAELIM Industrial
Translate
Translate – Byeol Song