Setting new heights with natural stone
The citizenM Bowery, located in New York City, is the world’s tallest hotel, showcasing Absolute Black granite and Carrara marble throughout its interior spaces
Based on the concept of affordable luxury for the people, the citizenM Bowery opened its U.S. flagship location, a 13th member of the hotel chain’s family, within the culturally rich and vibrant Bowery area of downtown Manhattan. Designed by Stephen B. Jacobs Group Architects and Planners, the citizenM Bowery is the world’s tallest modular hotel — standing 19 stories high and exceeding 100,000 square feet. The citizenM Bowery was originally designed as a conventional poured-in-place concrete building, but the hotel chain later decided to redesign the building using more efficient modular construction for the 15 typical guest room floors. The modules were stacked during a six-month period from November 2016 to May 2017.
The company citizenM is a Dutch hotel group that opened its first hotel at Schiphol Airport in 2008, followed by Amsterdam City in 2009 and citizenM Glasgow in 2010. The development of more hotels in Boston, Paris, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles are currently in progress.
“We collaborated with the interior design firm Concrete, based in Amsterdam,” said Isaac-Daniel Astrachan, AIA, LEED AP principal at the Stephen B. Jacobs Group. “They always use Absolute Black granite and Carrara marble in their CitizenM projects, however this specific site was especially unique in that it is now the tallest modular hotel in the world.” The hotel consists of 210 guestroom modules, the majority of which are doubles for a total of 300 rooms, each room being 150 square feet. The hotel also includes a double height lobby and lounge, as well as a rooftop bar with outdoor space and spectacular panoramic views soaring above the skyline. According to Concrete, at the front of the building is a public plaza with trees, benches and picnic tables, as well as an art wall drawing the guests toward the hotel. The stone was supplied by Van Stokkum.
“The construction industry as a whole is looking to keep up with advances in technology and finding new and exciting ways to speed up the building process and modular construction is definitely a mode of construction that optimizes efficiency,” said Astrachan. “Following citizenM’s brand standards and room sizes, which are predicated on providing affordable luxury, the layout of the typical floors is as streamlined and efficient as possible.” The floors employed 153 square meters of granite with a leather finish, as well as the bar tops in the Canteen that featured 4 square meters. In the coffee store, another 4 square meters of Carrara marble with a honed finished was used for the countertops.
According to the design team at Concrete, the citizenM is a place where people mix and mingle, locals and guests, therefore there is no solid demarcation of spaces and functions. The outdoors flows indoors, and spaces and furniture are hybrid as time runs through the day. The design team also explained that as guests check-in, they overlook the unique social landscape of citizenM; the adjacent double height space makes a spatial connection between the entrance and the lower ground floor public areas with the iconic stand, bar, living rooms and communal table.
The hotel opened its doors in September 2018.
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Jason Kamery is the Managing Editor and Group Digital Editor of Stone World. With more than a decade of experience covering the stone and countertop industry, he has conducted hundreds of interviews with fabricators, manufacturers, and industry leaders, and hosts the Stone World. podcast. He reports from events worldwide, including TISE, Coverings, and Marmomac, and his coverage extends to worker safety and silicosis, trade policy and tariffs, and fabrication technology. Kamery has also served as a speaker and panel moderator at The International Surface Event (TISE). He graduated from Purdue University with a B.A. in Mass Communication.
email: kameryj@bnpmedia.com | office: (248) 833-7356
