Hotel Polaris

The project vision is the creation of a timeless facility that references the existing Academy Campus’ tectonic tenets while serving a luxury experience for future patrons.

The overarching design direction is heavily influenced by that of the historic landmark institution, providing a planning, architectural, and interior design experience that reinterprets and updates the existing forms, patterns, materials, and detailing consistent with a mid-century modern vocabulary from the original campus design.

The architecture is a contextual response inspired by the original facilities on campus. The hotel plan is laid out on a rigid grid of similar scale to that of the USAFA, resulting in a very rational organization. Component alignment and orientation are all set by this strategy and reinforced by patterns and material changes in the horizontal surfaces. Without attempting to replicate the massing of the original buildings, the hotel borrows similar mechanisms such as strong horizontal datums, exposed columns in a soft story configuration, and stacking forms. Further strong influences from the Campus include materiality, patterning, and detailing.

Interior Design during the international style era relied heavily on furniture, layouts, and material manipulation and the same can be said for the hotel. Materials and intentional patterning reinforce this sweeping and all-encompassing expression which is most present in the lobby level. The challenge was taking that approach and pallet and transforming them into a luxury hospitality environment resulting in an environment that resembles a mid-century academic institution while being comfortable, welcoming, and classically modern in its look and feel.

It is through all the aforementioned intentions that the Future Hotel at the United States Air Force Academy strives to serve as an extension of the Campus and bridge a 50-year span of innovation in construction and architecture while highlighting the richness of international style design.