Established in 1923, the Hotel Tórshavn was a “Seamen´s home” until its renovation in 2007. The hotel lies in the city center of Tórshavn, right with the harbour and the historical warehouses, between the cultural street Tórsgøta and the Town Council plaza Vaglið.

The hotel has today 43 rooms, in addition to a restaurant and a café/bar. Since the tourism increases in the Faroe Islands, the hotel must be extended to get 40 additional rooms and upgraded to a 4-stars hotel. The site of the extension is a terrain which was bought to the municipality and the urban aspect of the project should therefore be included.

The site is composed of two plateaux, Tórsgøta and Vaglið, which have no connection. Our vision for the project is to use the extension not only as a hotel, but as a space which would unify the two urban spaces. The extension will become a hotel-plaza.

The building is conceived as volume which, lifted from the ground, leaves a space to welcome a covered urban space. The street space from Tórsgøta extends into the hotel on the ground floor and the urban space Vaglið extends into the hotel on the second floor. A public spiral staircase gives a link between those two urban spaces and links the new building to those urban spaces. The building is also offset from the existing building. The “in between” space allows a visual connection between the surrounding urban space and regroups the vertical and horizontal connections of the hotel.

The facades are pushed in from Tórsgøta and Vaglið towards the center of the building to reduce the domination of the hotel on both urban spaces. The facades are again pushed in to create outdoor terraces all around the building, which are at the same time, shared balconies for the hotel rooms and walking areas from and to the rooms. As the rooms are located against the east, west and north facades, they create a U-shape. This shape creates a large atrium stretching from the ground floor to the 4^th floor. The atrium brings light from above and contains the floor circulation to the hotel rooms.