Royal Hassan Hotel

I OYAL I IA AI I Palmeraie Marrakech LUXURY HOTEL BY

FERNANDO MENDOZA

INTRODUCTION Royal Hassan is a hotel complex designed to create a whole new experience to the guests. The location is Palmeraie, one of the richest and most atractive districts of Marrakesh, the vibrant capital of Morocco.

Located in North Africa, and western of the Sahara desert, the site has very low anual rainfall, the climate is very ardid and sun shines constantly during all year.

The aim with this project is to create a building that can stand in the middle of this harsh conditions, be intelligently designed and at the same time comfortable for the users.

The project is based on a vast reaserch on natural systems to provide the shelter and comfort that were needed. I started to do a research on desertic plants like cactae, since the building will be on the same conditions as the cacti. It’s facinating fisionomy allows them to survive during long periods of draught and its shape provide them with self shadow so they can stay cool.

So based on the survival and fisionmoical properties of the cacti we started designing this project as a new living entity entering the Sahara dessert.

SITE Palmeraie is located in the north east of the city. It holds the most finnest, luxurious and modern hotels in Marrakesh, it is also home to the Palmeraie Golf Club Resort. The Site is on Pont Sudoued Tensift, it shares the golf course of the Palmeraie Golf Club Resort.

Palmeraie District, Marrakech. Morocco

Source: Google Maps

CONTEXT Being a desertic city, Marrakesh has a very extremist climate, very hot days and cold nights. It’s hottest months are July and August. The anual rainfall doesn’t rise above 1.5 inches per month, about 60 liters pero month. Most of the water for human consumption comes from the Atlas Mountains, they trap winds bearing precipitation so while the areas surrounding them are arid, their foothills, where Marrakech sits, receive plenty of fresh water.

The average human needs a total od 50 liters per day for drinking, sanitation, and hygiene needs. In addition to drinking requirements, water is traditionally used for sanitation purposes for the disposal of human waste.

Effective waste disposal has many health benefits as it serves to control the spread of disease. Humans also have basic hygiene needs for personal washing and bathing, and for food preparation. These hygienerelated uses of water also have many health benefits.

RESEARCH By using the cacti as a base reaserch I focused on various aspects of the desertic plant: The physiology and the shape, its water collection and protectig system, the qualities of its outer cortex, and its defense mecanisms against the arid climate and wild life.

Incorporating all this elements of the reaserch into the project, I managed to set a list parameters into a system, that applied to a building, mimics the functions and behaviour using similar systems as the cactus.

Cactaceas Botanical Garden- Desert Museum Saltillo, Mexico

PROPERTIES

PROJECT PARAMETERS

Raw data source from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2542997

BUILDING LAYOUT

BUILDING LAYOUT

BUILDING LAYOUT

BUILDING LAYOUT

INTERNAL DISTRIBUTION

BUILDING LAYOUT

FLOOR PLANS

RENDERS

CONCLUSIONS By researching the natural systems that cactus uses to survive in the arid temperatures of the dessert, I managed to create a system that, by changing the parameters, can adapt the project to the same arid conditions or completly different ones.

The main focus of the was on the physionomical properties, the shape, it’s water collection and protectig system, the qualities of its outer cortex, and its defense mecanisms against the arid climate and wild life, all of this give the surviving capabilities to the dessert plant.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/St-Ts/Survival-Needs.html http://www.cactus-art.biz/note-book/Dictionary/Dictionary_C/dictionary_ cortex.htm Gleick, P. H. 1996. “Basic Water Requirements for Human Activities: Meeting Basic Needs.” Water International. 21:83–92.

United Nations. 1948. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Resolution 271).

Available online at <http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr> .

United Nations. 1967. Report of the United Nations Water Conference, Mar delPlata. New York: United Nations Publications.

World Bank. 1993. Water Resources Management: A Water Policy Paper.

Washington, D.C.: The World Bank. http://www.worldtravelguides.org/marrakech/weather-in-marrakech.php