EVEN LANDMARKS CAN BECOME SUSTAINABLE. IN CONNECTICUT, A BREUER BUILDING TAKES ON A NEW LIFE AS A HOTEL

22 Sept

Designed by Bauhaus architect Marcel Breuer, a brutalist building in Connecticut was converted from an office space into a 165-room hotel with sustainability at the forefront.

Marcel Breuer's office reopens as Hotel Marcel

Location: 500 Sargent Dr, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
Original Architecture: Marcel Breuer
Design: Becker + Becker, Dutch East Design
Art Curation: Sims Becker

Designed by Breuer, the building was originally completed in 1970 as the offices for Armstrong Rubber Company. ©Seamus Payne

Key features

Architecture firm Becker + Becker has transformed a 1970 Marcel Breuer brutalist former office into a mixed-use hotel. The New Haven, Connecticut hotel, aptly named Marcel Hotel, is poised to be the first net-zero hotel and first passive house-certified hotel in the US, and is one of few LEED Platinum certified hotels in the United States. Formerly the headquarters of Armstrong Rubber Company, the building has been converted into a 165-room and suite hotel with a restaurant, bar, lounge, and a 650-sq-m event and meeting space. On-site solar panels generate electricity for the entire building’s functions. Other sustainability initiatives such as a lighting system which reduces energy consumption by 30 per cent and the use of recycled materials like light fixtures and restored wood panelled walls were also taken.

The architect teamed up with interior design firm Dutch East Design to maintain the historical integrity of the iconic building. While most of the original concrete is not visible from the interior, the designer incorporated concrete grey along with accents of muted green and orange. Nodding to Breuer, the designer’s Cesca chair was included in each guest room and a scaled Bauhaus-inspired graphic carpet was integrated in the hotel’s hallways and a chevron-patterned carpet in guest rooms.

Frame’s take

Though brutalism isn’t everyone’s architectural cup of tea, Breuer’s brutalist building is internationally and locally recognized – even by those with limited concrete knowledge the field. Demolishing the building to make room for a more contemporary structure was certainly not an option and entirely unnecessary. No longer used as an office building, the conversion of it into a hotel represents how buildings can and should outlast their original functions. The adaptive reuse of the Breuer building represents how we should approach pre-existing built space. Faced with an imminent climate crisis, the design community must now more than ever trade in our throw-away mentality for one that embraces a total consideration of building stock at hand.