Location: Village Bugeuli, Racha, Georgia
Year: 2024
Status: Ongoing
Visualization: @george_mastak
The project is located in the village of Bugeuli in the region of Racha, Georgia, which is one of the most underdeveloped tourist destinations in the whole country but is slowly gaining attention and emerging as a “hidden gem” not only for foreign travelers, but for domestic ones as well.
The site is nested in a forest, with hills on the South and a view on the Rioni valley to the north, which posed a big challenge for the orientation of the building, thus resulting into the need of focusing not only on one single panoramic view, but also the more compressed ones on the immediate surroundings.
The building mainly echoes one of the most distinct characteristics of the local architectural language of Racha – housing soft volumes of wood on monolithic stone foundations. The morphology is shaped by dividing the functions into two volumes which are rotated slightly to follow the topography of the site and to take advantage of the views. The division further enhances the separation of public and private functions – one block consists of 26 rooms and a spa, which can only be accessed by the hotel guests, while the second block houses the restaurant, the bar and the conference hall. The two volumes are linked with the vestibule and the reception space.
The façade of the public block is a more direct reinterpretation of local “Shushabandi” typology, exposing different spaces to daylight, thus forming a rhythm of transparency and opacity. On the other hand, the hotel block is formed by the idea of providing all the hotel rooms with small “window-rooms” and balconies at the same time, shaping the façade as a series of windows and balconies. The materials used in both facades are black-stained wood and hammered concrete, in an attempt to grasp the feeling of warmth and domesticity of wood and the firmness of stone foundation prevalent in the typical Rachan house.