- No. 05
- Project
- 7 min read
Salt and shade.
Hotel Salina, one year on. What guests use, what they ignore, and what we would do again, from a week spent on the edge of the salt pans with a notebook.
Noor HaddadLandscape designer
A year after Hotel Salina opened, the owners invited us back for a week. No meetings, no snagging list: just a room, a notebook and permission to watch. Post-occupancy studies are usually a questionnaire and a meter reading. We wanted something closer to birdwatching.
We stayed in room fourteen, at the end of the long wing, and kept a log of where people were at every hour of the day. By the end of the week we had about four hundred entries, a sunburn, and a much clearer idea of what the building is actually for.1
Part 01What guests use
The long pool is used exactly as we hoped, but not when we expected. Very few people swim at midday. The pool fills at eight in the morning and again after six, when the water holds the colour of the sky and the salt pans beyond turn pink. In the heat of the day it is the shade that is full: the deep loggia along the south wing, where every chair was taken by eleven.
The loggia was almost cut from the project to save money. It is now the most used space in the hotel, more than the restaurant and more than the rooms. If we learned one thing from the week, it is that in a hot climate shade is not a feature. It is the main room.
In a hot climate shade is not a feature. It is the main room.
Part 02What guests ignore
The roof terrace, which we were very proud of, is nearly empty until sunset. It has a beautiful view and no shade at all. The small library by the reception is used mainly as a place to charge phones. And the outdoor showers we placed carefully along the boardwalk are used by almost nobody, because they face the restaurant.2
Part 03What we would do again
Almost everything about the planting. The tamarisk and saltbush along the edge of the pans have doubled in size, and they now screen the car park completely. Guests walk the boardwalk at dawn and dusk, and several told us it was their favourite part of the stay. It is the cheapest thing we built.
We are now designing a pergola for the roof terrace with the owners, in the same timber as the loggia. And the outdoor showers will be turned ninety degrees, which costs very little and should finally give them a reason to exist.
