Hotel Tokoen

Critic: Enrique Walker

Team: Sebastian Cilloniz, Sebastian Cruz, Marios Triantafyllou

In this studio we were assigned the Tokoen Hotel designed by Kiyonori Kikutake (1964) a project built with metabolist ideas in Yonago,Japan. We were asked us to double the surface of the project and to question the idea of openness. We first studied different projects of Kikutake and understood the design strategies that he used in his projects including the Token hotel. We also studied the Token hotel and found some contradictions regarding the design strategies. The Token hotel was conceived as a site-less and flexible structure that could grow, but we realized that the Token hotel never grow. In fact, when Kikutake was asked in the 70’s to expand the Hotel he built a completely new wing. Our proposal follows Kikutake’s design strategies and makes a direct connection with the wing. The project has three parts: A generic box hanging from the original structure that highlights and monumentalize it, a circulation system that connects the wing with the original Token and the project with the landscape, and a system of rooms organized in the ground floor. We also proposed to invert the program, bring the rooms to the ground floor and the public program to the box. 

Columbia University, GSAPP