Rogla, Slovenia
Commissioned by Unitur to design the extension of the Hotel Natura in Rogla, Enota modifies its typology and extends the hotel with multi-purpose common areas and a recreational swimming pool, reaching the hotel’s full potential.
Hotel Natura is one of the visitors’ first points of contact with the sports and tourist resort Rogla.
It was built as the final among a number of hotels and represents perhaps the biggest visual departure from the recognizable expression of the previous interventions, which referenced the local, rurally developed landscape to a greater degree.
The project has recently been awarded a 2023 International Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
How does one tackle an extension where essentially half a hotel needs to be added? If the same design approach is retained, the hotel’s volume – which already stands out somewhat from the local landscape – will only become more present.
Designing the new section with an independent appearance but with a logical affiliation with the existing building, therefore, presents itself as a suitable solution.
And what should its expression be like?
When the visitors set out to the top of Rogla, their mental image of the landscape is rather romantic: a snowbound chalet in the middle of pristine, unspoiled nature.
The real-world needs and accommodation providers are obviously different – to supply as much accommodation as possible, with balconies, the appearance and scale of which have little in common with that solitary chalet.
This is what informed the decision to connect the unconnectable: to make the facade become the roof.
The facade is visually transformed into a timber gable roof, historically characteristic of the environment.
The timber on the facade is freely stacked and unprotected, which will allow it to age and cohere with the surrounding landscape with its appearance.
The new addition thus doesn’t as much reference the existing building as it does the surrounding forest and the traditional rural development.
The interior organization of the program offers a clear division between the public and the accommodation sections.
The entire public program featuring taller stories opens towards the forest hinterland in the north, while all the rooms with a slightly lower ceiling height are oriented towards the ski stadium in the south.
The differences in floor heights are bridged by the new staircase set up in a ‘vertical hall,’ as well as a new double-sided lift.
Such design lends itself to an attractive interior space enabling plentiful crosswise views and natural lighting of all the spaces, including the corridors.
Despite the possibility of clearly separating the public and the accommodation sections, they may also be directly connected in the event of renting the entire annex or its individual self-contained sections.
Project: Hotel Natura Extension
Architects: Enota projektiranje d.o.o.
Design Team: Dean Lah, Milan Tomac, Sara Mežik, Jurij Ličen, Nuša Završnik Šilec, Peter Sovinc, Jakob Kajzer, and Rasmus Skov
Client: Unitur d.o.o.
Photographers: visualizations Spacer
