The 25hours Hotel HafenCity is the first hotel in Hamburg harbor's large urban development area and the fifth hotel from the small lifestyle group. As part of the Überseequartier (Transoceanic Quarter), the hotel is in the heart of HafenCity right next to attractions such as the Elbe Philharmonic Hall, the cruise terminal and the International Maritime Museum.

Downtown areas like the Rathaus and Mönckebergstrasse are easily accessible within a 10 minutes walk. At the border between the traditional harbor quarter and the Speicherstadt around St. Katherine and the hyper modern HafenCity, the location inspired the building's
creators to interpret the contrasts of harbor and sea, of homesickness and wanderlust. Just like any seaman's home in a foreign harbor, the cabins are set up to be warm and comfy.

Elements and materials from the shipbuilding industry are interpreted with a twinkle in the eye and held together by maritime stories; in the 25hours Hotel HafenCity, 25 seamen from around the world tell their real stories of dangerous passages, romantic rendezvous and painful farewells. Drawn by the
Berlin Illustrator Jindrich Novotny, the stories are woven into the wallpaper to become part of the guest rooms and are told in full-length in the cabin's logbook.

In contrast to the hotel's living area, the ground floor, with lobby, restaurant and bar, presents the raw world of harbor living. Elements from warehouses and container terminals are combined with references to imported and exported goods; some high shelves are used for the wall coverings, stacks of oriental carpets are an inviting spot to relax. HEIMAT Küche + Bar serves as the hotel's relaxed restaurant with the favorite dishes of the crew, from ingredients with certified origin.
Depending on the time of day, a relaxing lounge or a pulsing bar, the ground floor of the 25hours Hotel HafenCity aims to be the living room of the quarter.

Responsible for the interior design is the Hamburg team of Stephen Williams Associates in cooperation with Eventlabs and the freelance Creative Director Markus Stoll as curator, as well as the set designer Conni Kotte. The team combines their competences from different areas and is very familiar with the Hamburg groove.

Facilities

In order to live up to it's reputation as budget deluxe hotel, the 25hours Hotel HafenCity offers current interpretations of services for the urban nomad. At the top, there's the HafenSauna. It's not meant for feel-good spa-goers, rather more for the Finnish influenced sauna purist. Raw and no fluff, on the sixth floor, sometimes there's a heavy breeze, but you always have a good view. To cool off, guests just step out into the outdoor area with a view of the harbor and the cruise-ship terminal. Hotel guests can rent a sauna sack with everything they need to relax in
the sauna for just 10 Euro. Beer, water and fruit is free at the HafenSauna. On the first floor, 25hours offers hotel guests the club floor for a relaxing retreat.

In the radio room there are iMacs, printers and a Skype booth, the Vinyl Room is equipped with records and turntables, the Club Room offers a lounge atmosphere and space to just be. The spaces can also be exclusively rented for private functions.
For meetings and events the 25hours Hotel HafenCity offers nonpareil rooms for 2 to 200 people. Besides the classic Freiraum, there's also the shipping container in the lobby (25m²) as well as the mare Gallery (300m²) with separate entrance for private functions.

Architecture

With its combined use for hotel, apartments and retail, the Virginia Project portrays the seldom type of a hybrid block; with this comes a very interesting contribution to the theme of structure, grit and urbanity of HafenCity.

The concept of a closed quads may generate quiet courtyards for apartments and hotel rooms, but then it also wouldn't really use the location's unique flair and potential. That's why the Virginia Project modifies this concept by opening thin fractures in the corner areas of the block above the otherwise fully covered ground floor. Through these openings, interesting visual relationships and spacial connections are created between the inner courtyard and the urban surrounding with the old harbor master building, the Magdeburg Harbor and the rest of the
Überseequartier. These connections are supported by an entrance over the outdoor stairway from Überseeboulevard. The courtyard then becomes part of the urban structure without losing its character as a quiet space. Independent of which direction they face, the apartments in the building are oriented toward the street, while the bedrooms are facing the courtyard.

For the hotel this means exciting room categories with different qualities, dependent on where they are in the building. The
contrast of the inner and outer is supported by variations in the facade themes.
While the outer brick facade is characteristic of the urban concept, the courtyard facade is made up of story-high windows with balconies and railings.

Apartments and hotel both have access to the Übersee Garden in the courtyard. The polygonal geometry of the open space design creates interesting perspectives and harmoniously embeds the playing and communal spaces. The intense vegetation and native grove subdivides the courtyard and allows one to forget that they are on the roof of a retail center.

25hours is a dynamic hotel idea, which builds upon the shoulders of traditional hotel business to search for contemporary answers to the demands of an urban, cosmopolitan style audience. The brand 25hours is currently focused on German speaking countries. Besides the 25hours Hotel No.1 in Hamburg and two different locations in Frankfurt, the 25hours Hotel Wien has just been opened in Austria.
Hamburg's HafenCity is the 5th property of the brand. The sixth building of the young group is currently under construction in Zurich and is planning to open in the fall of 2012. 25hours caused quite a stir in 2003 as the first young and affordable of the design hotels and has found success in the budget deluxe niche since. All of the 25hours hotels are members of design hotelsTM, a handpicked collection of over 200 hotels with personality in destinations around the world.