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Repurposing urban industrial spaces as short term accommodation.

Context

Short term holiday rentals have been blamed for contributing to the extreme permanent housing shortage across Australia. The lack of affordable housing has impacted communities, with many essential and low paid workers moving from popular tourist locations.

Sub, a pixel (micro) hotel in the pump pit of the South Brisbane dry dock explores repurposing urban industrial spaces as short term accommodation. Reactivating these under-utilised spaces through accommodation balances tourism and returning inner-city housing stock to the long-term rental market.

Several visits to the Maritime Museum were undertaken to both measure the space and appreciate the rich legacy of seafaring and its impact on Queensland. Access to the bottom of the pump pit was restricted but with the use of a laser measure, accurate dimensions were able to be produced.
Material references were photographed for later use. The initial concept work was developed as a poster and hung on public display. Software used for this project included Revit and Twinmotion.
The stillness is magnified in the recurring square form of the floor plan and the quarried block wall. The circle forms are indicative of turbulence and movement associated with the busy dry dock. The colour reflectivity changes as you travel down levels akin to descending through a column of water. The colour palette reinforces this experience. Colour choices in the material selections also reference the International Code Flags used as maritime signals.
With a pixel hotel in the heart of the city guests can enjoy convenient accommodation that is layered with the rich history of our growing urban centres. Brisbane’s inner-city heart has continually involved with the South Brisbane changing from industrial wharves to Expo ’88 and now the South Bank Parklands over the course of two generations.
The dry dock and associated pump pit located to the east of South Bank were constructed between 1875 and 1880. The project used local quarried stone, ironbark timber and was the first project in Queensland to use Portland cement for concrete.