HOTEL ZOLA
Inside a former officers' dormitory, the faded grandeur of the building called for a new character. Our task was to breathe life into the aging walls and reveal a fresh presence.
CONCEPT
Guided by the spirit of Émile Zola, the French writer who gave naturalism its voice, I translated literary truth into architectural surfaces. Naturalism became our compass: honest, tactile, unembellished. The walls would not disguise themselves, they would embody decay and renewal at once.
FOUNDATION
Base coat plaster, enriched with Carrara marble chippings, laid the groundwork. This mineral base carried strength and memory, a surface ready to be shaped and weathered, as if time itself had already passed over it.
SURFACE
Floral ornaments, pressed gently into the plaster, revealed patterns of elegance amidst austerity. Across 18 rooms, ornamental stripes and borders framed the walls in two distinct color worlds: one in deep burnt umbra, the other in warm French ochre. Each room holds its own rhythm, each motif a variation on natural decay.
DECAY
Through structure, pigments and careful reworking, the surfaces began to whisper of time’s passage. Their textures suggested walls shaped by nature rather than hand. What emerged was not decoration but patina — surfaces that feel as though they have always belonged, carrying the quiet beauty of raw natural erosion into the present.
""It all looks like
raw natural decay"