Michelberger Hotel – Berlin

Started in 2009, the Michelberger has garnered a reputation for its unusually inclusive approach to hospitality, set-up more like a communal house than a traditional hotel. It occupies a listed former light industrial building that dates from 1903, located within the district of Friedrichshain, Berlin.

Within the existing shell, we have created a series of new spaces that tame the industrial heritage of the building. Domestic-scale rooms and materials have been layered over the Michelberger’s original features, without concealing the vast open floor-plate with its enormous windows and sculptural beams. This approach creates a visible tension between the building’s past and what it will become.

The differing spaces within each room are crowned by wooden palisaded frames that define a sense of enclosure and create a dialogue in scales between the divisions in the room and the city body. As a part of the subdued palette and natural plasters, the lightweight timber insertions add delicacy to the industrial spaces and offered a lightweight construction method that stemmed from the use of the sustainable and high performance Panzerholz. Inhabiting the rooms, a range of fine furniture are crafted from plywood and softwood; desks, tables, chairs, beds, and benches which occupy the scale of the person for resting, hiding, and dressing.