Superbude St. Georg | Dreimeta

With its dual concept between a hostel and a hotel, the Superbude I in Hamburg attracts a broad-range target group. Despite heavy traf- fic its authentic and surprising design could win over interesting and interested guests.

Our client: A visionary hotelier with bench- mark houses

The Superbude was established in the building of a former printing plant, which was family property of the German hotelier Kai Hollmann. Kai Hollmann is the owner of the hotel group Fortune Hotels, one of the largest privately owned hotel groups. With houses such as Das Gastwerk, The George and the 25hours hotels the group fills the premium and budget mar- ket.

Our task: The interior design of a hotel

Part of the strategy to develop the Fortune port- folio further was to use the printing plant as a hostel. This concept also made sense because of the location being on the outskirts of the Hamburg quarter St. Georg between two arte- rial roads. The work cut out for Dreimeta was to design the rooms as well as the public areas such as the lobby, bar and shop.

Our idea: Tap the full guest potential using flexible occupancy

Apart from functioning as a classic hostel with shared rooms the design provides astonishing potential for expansion. Single travellers, coup- les and families use the Superbude as a hotel.
Its rooms with a bathroom and WC can be adapted: stackable beds maximise capacity, with only a few hand movements the double rooms can be made into 3- or 4- bed rooms. That way Superbude boasts space for up to 240 guests in 74 rooms. The concept used for the public areas lean on a hostel scheme. Re- ception, bar and shop are combined in one area which can be run with little personnel. The Kitchen Club serves as a breakfast area as well as a central meeting point for guests. Microwave and ovens are provided for lunch and dinner time. A cinema, a function room and a gym broaden their range of service. Guests enjoy a mix of straightforward hostel accommodation and the service of an ideally technically-equipped hotel.

Our design solution: A reference to the seaport Hamburg

The aim was to design the Superbude using inexpensive furnishing which, next to its au- thentic character, gave it a unique touch and practical comfort for its guests. For this purpose we included typical local elements and converted them into something else for the Superbude - for example, furniture made of rope and euro pallets or beer crates from a Hamburg brewery we made into stools. The choice of authentic materials is also visible in sofa covers made of used jeans or shipping crates used for the kitchenette. The rooms on each floor have a separate design. The various décor and room categories are specified by a colour code. The design principle also inclu- ded reinterpreting trivial everyday objects in the rooms - that way, scaffold pipes became clothes rails and washing machine drums be- came bedside tables.