Daily Rituals is a new creative project and ongoing study by Hotel Hotel that explores the weird and wonderful things people do regularly as rituals.
Mike Whitney
Emily Sexton reading in bed by Lee Grant
On Saturday 3 May, Emily Sexton, Head of Programming at the Wheeler Centre performed a reading from the bed of room 203. Ten hotel guests piled on in for the first in an ongoing series of bedtime stories.
Barrie Barton talks mortality
On Saturday 9 May, Barrie Barton, Director of Right Angle Studio led a long walk and rambling talk through the gardens, trails and architecture of the Australian National University. Taking a journey through his old stomping ground, Barrie talked mortality and the movement of time (big ones!) dreams and truths, how to survive in Canberra and why birthdays are good for you.
Meet Bob Earl of Oculus, a think tank/urban design/landscape architecture studio/lots of other things. In addition to all these hats Bob is a self-confessed chocolate slut from Queens. Over three kinds of chocolate bars we talked about the creation of Hotel Hotel and its surrounds.
For most developments, landscape architecture usually ends up being the add-on at the end, as a garnish for the main course, which is the building itself. Not so for Nishi, Hotel Hotel’s home. Bob is the guy that has been there from the very beginning, he has shaped the way that the building looks, inside and out, how it feels and what it communicates.
Bob’s job hasn’t been to pretty up the exteriors with whatever plants are hot right now (nien, spit, nien) but to create a sense of domesticity, of beautiful every day, of intimacy, of coming somewhere for the first time but feeling at home.
The overall statement of the project has been an invitation to occupy the space.
The process is infinitely more interesting than a description of the end product itself (you’ll just have to come and take a look to know what its really like.. Stay a while… Be part of the landscape). To understand the process you need to know about what Bob calls ‘The Twelve Obsessions’, the quiet and ever changing non-manifesto that Oculus works by.
The designs for Hotel Hotel and Nishi have changed countless times but have always had these obsessions in mind. As Bob poetically puts it, “seeds have been sown by countless people, only to germinate months later, and lead us on a new direction. So much so that there is an authorless quality to the project”. The plans have changed just as many times, and to be honest, “I’m not sure what anything is anymore, but it’s good”.
This is pretty self-explanatory. In Hotel Hotel’s case the mantra was ‘let the plants attack the cracks’ and ‘let the landscape invade the building’. Think post-apocalyptic urban jungle. Like that scene in the 13 Monkeys where Brad Pitt stumbles out into the light to a building overtaken by vegetation.
This is challenging the very Australian practice of marking out territory as being either private or public. Isn’t it more interesting to make a mark in a public space? Like setting up a couch on the sidewalk to sit and have a beer and a chat. In the Hotel Hotel scenario, it’s about voyeurism… When you stay in a hotel you want to see other human beings. This has been channelled by the three level atrium that 26 of the 68 hotel rooms look onto. The atrium is predominantly populated with Tasmanian Tree Ferns (Dicksonia Antarctica) creating a screen that allows glimpses of shadows and human activity, like a puppet show.
This is about setting the stage for the theatre of life. This happens in very subtle ways: providing steps to sit on and shade to sit under, having different kinds of seating so that people can do different things. This has happened all throughout Hotel Hotel and the NewActon precinct generally. The end result makes for good people watching. This obsession is never really complete, and always needs to be added to.
This is about getting lots of and all different types of people to share a space. Chances of a punch up increase exponentially but ideas and ways of doing things will be challenged, which can only be a good and interesting thing.
This is probably the most challenging and frustrating obsession. The absurdity of certain laws and design codes that stop some bloody brilliant ideas dead in their tracks, or homogenise them to the point of not being worth doing at all, and leads to a sterile public space. This also relates to how we as space users adhere to public space regulations and what is commonly considered socially acceptable behaviour. We’re not saying you should start littering or anything, but maybe bust out a tune next time you’re on a park bench.
No, no, no. Just no. Landscape architecture is about domesticating a space, making it feel intimate and inviting; not putting flowers in planter boxes.
Create a space that inspires, that elicits belonging, that expresses civic beauty. Be brave and express how you feel, chances are the rest of us feel the same way.
Create a space that encourages a smile, a public kiss, flirtation, a casual conversation. There is at the same time a comfort and a sexiness to being alone amongst a mass of people, engaging if you want to, or just watching.
Bob talks about a tendency these days for curated spontaneity, like flash mobs, which are great but lack the depth of the real thing. He told me a story about coming across an old couple in the park in New York dancing to the music of a nearby carousel. It’s tricky getting the formula that allows for this in each space, but if you get it rights its pretty darn nice.
One of Bob’s favourite things in a project is going back to see how people interact with a space. Mostly it’s not how you would expect. So the key here is not for grand gestures, but rather subtle and vague details that are open to interpretation and use.
Don’t pigeon hole or label expertise but instead bring in a whole range of thinkers to influence and shape a space. Why not collaborate with a barista and an octogenarian on making a bus stop? The end result will at best be genius and at worst be outside of the norm.
Look at the things that people do in their every day, drinking a coffee, walking to work, buying the paper, and make that experience better. These experiences make up 90% of our life experiences, make each one special.
Dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water and set aside in a warm area.
Place butter on the stove with 200mls of the milk and heat to melt the butter. Sift flour and bi-carb into a large bowl. Once butter mixture is hot add to remaining milk and stir to mix.
Add yeast and sugar mixture to the milk and stir. Create a well in the flour and slowly whisk in the milk and yeast mixture. Don’t over mix. Leave the mixture to prove overnight in fridge or leave mixture to stand for minimum 30 minutes.
Warm a non-stick pan and grease the inside of some egg rings. Half fill rings with mixture and leave to cook for 5 minutes each, no need to flip over.
Serve immediately with good butter and raw honey.
Rediscovering the beauty of the primitive modernism and environmentalism of the Burley Griffins. – Lou Weis
Lou Weis is the kind of guy you meet at a party and start a really interesting conversation with that forces you to excuse yourself to go to the bathroom every ten minutes to go and look up an art or design reference on Wikipedia in order to keep up. Very intelligent, very eloquent, and a big brain full of information and effortless intertextuality.
Lou is the Creative Director of Broached Commissions, a context driven design company that makes limited edition design collections each based on a different event in Australian history. Say what now? I know, read it again but slowly.
Broached was commissioned by Hotel Hotel to theorise about how to place the hotel within the history of Canberra design (the little city where Hotel Hotel lives) and to create functional objects for the public lounge that communicate these theorisings.
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On paper, Phill is the director of sales and marketing at Molonglo Group…
But really his business card should read ‘that nice guy that thinks a lot about people and place and is involved in the operation of everything”. He’s the guy that gets things working.
Phill has been working on Hotel Hotel since day dot. He is particularly involved in Hotel Hotel that he sees as a place that can help those people that travel for work to re-remember that they are human even if they have to wear a tie during the day.
In the restaurant we have a smoker but at home you could use a Webber or a Chinese steamer. Line a steamer basket with cheese cloth and add the goat’s curd. Place the smoking chips on a layer of foil in a saucepan (choose a saucepan that the steamer sits snug on top of so not too much smoke escapes).
Heat the smoking chips over a medium flame. When starting to smoke, ignite the chips and allow to burn until all the smoking chips are evenly alight. Remove from the heat and snuff the flame out by placing a lid on top. Once the flame is out, quickly remove the lid and place the steamer basket with the goats curd on top, allow the smoke to slowly dissipate (about 15 minutes). If all this seems like too much effort, straight goat’s curd will do. Transfer the smoked goat’s curd to a piping bag and refrigerate.
Marinated eggplantFirst salt the eggplant. Slice the eggplant widthways into 1 inch thick slices and sprinkle fairly generously with salt. Leave the eggplant salting in a colander whilst you prepare the marinade. Combine the rice vinegar, light soy and sugar, heat just until the sugar is dissolved, set aside. Back to the eggplant, completely rinse the salt off under running water and pat dry. Heat about 3 tablespoons of the vegetable oil in a large pan and fry the eggplant slices until nicely caramelised on both sides and cooked through. This could also be done on a hot grill on a BBQ. When all the eggplant is cooked pour over the soy marinade and allow it to marinate for an hour or so.
To assemble and serveRemove eggplant from marinade. Arrange the marinated eggplant on a serving platter and pipe the goats curd randomly over the eggplant. Sprinkle the toasted sesame seeds over the marinated eggplant, scatter the radish slices, tear some of the shiso leaves and nori sheets over the top and finish with the katsuobushi shavings.
Brothers Johnathan and Nectar Efkarpidis are the founders of Hotel Hotel.
To break down their roles in simplistic terms; Nectar’s brain will periodically explode with a creative and challenging concept after which Johnathan will patiently and fastidiously collect the pieces, turning them into a plausible and workable business venture.
Johnathan has a fierce insistence on sustainable projects (environmentally and in terms of community), Nectar a passion for all things artistic, and both have a love for the curious, the well made and the considered.
They pursue a collaborative approach to the development of new ideas that help support the global sustainability movement, local artists, designers and small industry.
They love hotels for their transience, for the way that they create a public space that can connect people and ideas. They see the hotel as a vessel for delivering culture, art, a rejuvenation of the artisan and importantly a place for all kinds of people to meet and mix it up.
The brothers looked to re-consider their hotel with a meaningful and relevant typology for its location, Canberra. They see it as a starting point that will evolve organically over time and with the input of guests, staff, visitors and loafers.
Johnathan, Nectar and their family of collaborators at Molonglo Group have conceived of and directed every aspect of the creation of Hotel Hotel. From the design of the building it sits in, to the design and curation of the interiors spaces, right down to the selection of refurbished mid 20th century Australian made chairs placed in each room.