MELIÁ
PRINCESA
The Princesa Center iss an important urban complex built over a 4,200 m2 site. Its uses are commercial and residential. Its primary element is a luxury hotel (Meliá Madrid) which includes apartments, offices, and a garage.
As it involved a full block, work began with a preliminary study and an application was made to reorganize the permitted volumes with the City Council requiring a study of the projected shadows on the surrounding buildings. To free views, the main construction was developed as a high-rise slab perpendicular to Princesa Street. As it was necessary to locate the Meliá travel agency on the street level, there wasn’t enough space for entries to the hotel nor to the apartments, so a private street was created merely for access to the complex, which favored traffic circulation and gave the hotel a more exclusive character.
The grand areas of the hotel and its offices occupy the first two floors. The 225 rooms are distributed on the following nine floors, while the last seven floors are dedicated to luxury apartments. The hotel’s interior design integrates volume with a play of planes on different levels and achieves an efficient use of space, better interconnections and performance. In the meeting rooms, moveable and foldable walls were used abundantly to diversify uses and create a multiplicity of spaces.
Aunque el conjunto iba a pertenecer a varias comunidades y propiedades, prevaleció el criterio de centralización de todas sus instalaciones.
To complete the available built area of the development, a hexagonal seven-floor block was designed to achieve the most ideal form to create a seamless look. Also, it adapted well to the circular ramps of the garage which has a capacity for 300 cars.
Exposed concrete took center stage in the composition of the façades with its bold forms, white marble along the windowless walls, and window framing of anodized aluminum with deep sections.
Although the complex would belong to various communities and owners, it was finally decided to centralize all the mechanical services.