Okko hotel rooms by Patrick Norguet feature bathrooms hidden behind louvred walls

French designer Patrick Norguet has created the interior for a hotel in Nantes featuring compact rooms with wavy white louvred walls enclosing en suite bathrooms (+ slideshow).

Okko hotel interior by Patrick Norguet with en suites hidden behind louvred walls

Norguet was invited by hotel chain Okko to develop the interior of its first urban hotel, and responded by creating a scheme that makes the most of the small bedrooms.

Okko hotel interior by Patrick Norguet with en suites hidden behind louvred walls

Each room has a footprint of just 18 square metres, and incorporates a wall-mounted desk and a small settee squeezed into a corner next to the bed, as well as the enclosed en suite.

Okko hotel interior by Patrick Norguet with en suites hidden behind louvred walls

“We began by removing useless things, to focus us on the wellbeing of the user and integrate more information and services using new technologies,” Patrick Norguet told Dezeen.

Okko hotel interior by Patrick Norguet with en suites hidden behind louvred walls

The rooms feature curtains along one wall that can be pulled back to reveal a television and a small storage area with shelving and a clothes rail.

Okko hotel interior by Patrick Norguet with en suites hidden behind louvred walls

The louvred screens that provide privacy for the bathrooms are lined internally with curved glass to ensure the space remains bright and watertight.

Okko hotel interior by Patrick Norguet with en suites hidden behind louvred walls

Norguet used the slim Lines and Waves laminated porcelain slabs he designed for Italian ceramics brand Lea Ceramiche to cover the wall behind the headrest in the bedroom.

Okko hotel interior by Patrick Norguet with en suites hidden behind louvred walls

Elsewhere in the hotel, a large communal room is designed as a homely space where guests can meet and relax.

Okko hotel interior by Patrick Norguet with en suites hidden behind louvred walls

The lounge area is intended to evoke a comfortable clubroom environment, with sofas and armchairs surrounding low coffee tables picked out by accent lighting.

Okko hotel interior by Patrick Norguet with en suites hidden behind louvred walls

Textural wall panels, floor-to-ceiling curtains, rugs and upholstered furniture add to the relaxed feel.

Okko hotel interior by Patrick Norguet with en suites hidden behind louvred walls

A breakfast bar and facilities for making drinks and snacks can be accessed throughout the day and night, and there is a desk area where guests can work.

Okko hotel interior by Patrick Norguet with en suites hidden behind louvred walls

The design of the hotel’s fitness centre features bright red surfaces, industrial lighting and tiled walls that lend it a more vibrant aesthetic.

Okko hotel interior by Patrick Norguet with en suites hidden behind louvred walls

The four-star hotel in Nantes is the first to be opened by Okko and Norguet’s design scheme will be applied to future hotels in cities including Grenoble and Lyon.

Okko hotel interior by Patrick Norguet with en suites hidden behind louvred walls

Photography is by Jérôme Galland.

Okko hotel interior by Patrick Norguet with en suites hidden behind louvred walls

Here’s some more information about the Okko hotel from Patrick Norguet:


The first Okko hotel opens in Nantes

Okko hotel is, first and foremost, the story of my encounter with Olivier Devys, the project’s founder.

Okko hotel interior by Patrick Norguet with en suites hidden behind louvred walls

Starting with a blank page, we combined our visions and our determination to take up the challenge of upending traditional practices in the hospitality industry to create a bold and innovative concept, an all-included package for the best location, best service and best price! Thus was born the idea of a contemporary and urban four-star hotel where the human, design, and innovation are at the heart of the project.

Okko hotel interior by Patrick Norguet with en suites hidden behind louvred walls

I designed an adequate, simple, and timeless product around this “Okkospirit” to cater to customers’ new needs: a place unaffected by time or trends and where the notions of service and comfort are essential; to be able to work, dine, relax, be waited on or use anything freely, any time of the day; to feel like being home away from home. The high-end amenities and services in the modern and relaxing Okko room and in the vast and convivial Club room make the Okko hotel a unique place that combines aesthetics and comfort. I wanted to create a brand, not just a hotel!

Okko hotel interior by Patrick Norguet with en suites hidden behind louvred walls

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bathrooms hidden behind louvred walls
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Pradenn Social Housing by Block Architects

Balconies shaped like greenhouses project from the facades of these apartment blocks in Nantes by French studio Block Architects (+ slideshow).

Pradenn Social Housing by Block Architects

The trio of seven-storey concrete buildings form a new social housing complex, designed by Block Architects for the La Pelousière area of Nantes, western France.

Pradenn Social Housing by Block Architects

Constructed from aluminium and glass, the balconies protrude from the west and east elevations of the structures and feature gabled profiles modelled on the prototypical shape of a shed or barn.

Pradenn Social Housing by Block Architects

“The general built shape is taken from agricultural typology that existed in the history of the site, a barn at the scale of the landscape,” explained the architects. “The project searches to capture this materiality of the shed, through the use of an industrial cladding material.”

Pradenn Social Housing by Block Architects

Some of the balconies are surrounded by a row of pine slats, creating a small fence that offers some privacy for residents.

Pradenn Social Housing by Block Architects

“A domestic scale is taken from the suburban context close by and integrated by the addition of wood fences and greenhouses borrowed from the garden,” the architects added.

Pradenn Social Housing by Block Architects

The apartments were designed so that each has windows on two different sides of the building, allowing for increased light and ventilation.

Pradenn Social Housing by Block Architects

Folding glass doors lead out to the balconies, which can also be covered using roll-back fabric awnings.

Pradenn Social Housing by Block Architects

Block Architects previously worked on a building clad in multi coloured stripes, derived from the aesthetics of a vegetable farm.

Pradenn Social Housing by Block Architects

Other social housing projects we’ve featured include one with white walls and identical doors and windows, tower blocks referencing 1960s style in São Paulo and a housing development with a facade in different shades of green glass.

Pradenn Social Housing by Block Architects

See more housing »
See more architecture in France »

Pradenn Social Housing by Block Architects

Interior photography is by Stéphane Chalmeau. Exterior photography is by Nicolas Pineau.

Here’s a project description from the architects:


Pradenn Social Housing

Simple and compact

The brief stands for 89 socials housings, 51 in rental and 38 in accession. The site is in an important development area of the Great Nantes called la Pelousière. The project tries to combine density, mixed-use and comfort for the inhabitants.

Pradenn Social Housing by Block Architects
Site plan – click for larger image

A reinvented landscape

The project is inserted and interacting with its context. A gradation between public and private has been organised through built and landscaped sequences : access ramp, public space, parking on the public space or underneath the buildings, pedestrian path, halls, housings and loggias.

Pradenn Social Housing by Block Architects
Basement plan – click for larger image

The general built shape comes from an agricultural typology, that existed in the site history, a barn at the scale of the landscape. The project searches to catch this materiality of the shed, through the use of an industrial cladding material. This simple and efficient shape also drives the fiction of a large ‘country house’.

Pradenn Social Housing by Block Architects
Ground floor plan – click for larger image

Then, a domestic scale is taken from the close by suburban context and integrated by the addition of wood fences and greenhouses borrowed from the garden. This sample, as a copy / paste process, reminds to the collective the sums of individuals, and shows the residential and individual dimension in a collective building that tries to escape from its usual expression.

Pradenn Social Housing by Block Architects
First floor plan – click for larger image

The three buildings are ‘placed’ on a concrete base, raised from the floor. The space in between is either open, where the parking is, or flanked by vegetated slopes in a continuity of the central plaza, integrating the buildings.

The whole project is a reinterpreted sample of the neighbourhood environment, put at the scale of building.

Pradenn Social Housing by Block Architects
Second floor plan – click for larger image

Comfort and energetic performance

Prior to anything else the housings have been thought from the inside, and in relation to the surrounding nature.

Pradenn Social Housing by Block Architects
Third floor plan – click for larger image

Thus the housings have mainly double exposure, from one side to another or in an angle. Every spaces have been studied to have exterior views and daylight. The greenhouses and their balconies are present in most of the housings, providing a large outside space.

Pradenn Social Housing by Block Architects
Fourth floor plan – click for larger image

The building has a structural principal of concrete walls in between the housings, crossing from one side to another. Being altogether compact and insulated from the outside, the building reaches the performance of the BBC-Effinergie label.

Pradenn Social Housing by Block Architects
Fifth floor plan – click for larger image

Cost: €7,100,000 (not including taxes)
Floor area: 6740 m²
Design: 2010
Completion: 2013

Pradenn Social Housing by Block Architects
Roof plan – click for larger image

Client:  Harmonie Habitat
Architect: Block Architectes
Co-contractors: Guinée*Potin Architectes, Cetrac (engineering), ITAC ( acoustic engineering)

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Surreal Floating Room

L’artiste argentin Leandro Erlich a encore frappé avec cette installation présentant une chambre arrachée d’un immeuble et suspendue dans les airs au dessus de la ville. Accessible par une échelle, son oeuvre intitulée “Monte-meubles – L’ultime déménagement” a été créée pour le festival d’art Le Voyage à Nantes.

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Basket Tree

Les créatifs de A/LTA architects nous proposent de découvrir ce superbe projet installé à Nantes appelé « Arbre à Basket ». Situé dans la ville française en face de La maison des hommes et des techniques, cette installation permet à plusieurs équipes de tous âges de jouer au basket. Plus d’images dans la suite.

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Tour Végétale de Nantes by Edouard François

Tour Végétale de Nantes by Edouard François

Plants adapted to thrive in rocky crevices will take over the facade of this tower for Nantes by French architect Edouard François.

Tour Végétale de Nantes by Edouard François

Plants will grow inside stainless steel tubes on the Tour Végétale de Nantes.

Tour Végétale de Nantes by Edouard François

The tubes will take up little space on each host balcony but will provide leafy surroundings for inhabitants while showcasing species collected by the local botanical gardens.

Tour Végétale de Nantes by Edouard François

The building will comprise a plinth containing retail and parking, offices enclosed in a black rubber cube and the residential tower with shifting, elliptical balconies.

Tour Végétale de Nantes by Edouard François

François is renowned for architecture that incorporates plants, including the Parisian Eden Bio social housing development completed in 2009. More details in our earlier story.

Tour Végétale de Nantes by Edouard François

More stories about plants on Dezeen »

The information below is from Edouard François:


This operation situated in the future eco-neighborhoods, Prairie-au-Duc, in Nantes, is unique in particular because of its height. Its main challenge is to (re) create the desire to live in tall buildings, in a remarkable setting in the heart of the town.

This mixed project consists of a base of shops and parking, on which is placed in a black rubber cube of offices and a housing tower of 17 storey (60m).

The tower consists of a main body ringed by elliptic balconies. The balconies vary from floor to floor to form a giant organic silhouette.

The tower is the support for a collection of chasmophites plants coming from the collections of the botanical gardens of Nantes. These plants have been collected by scientists from the whole world and frozen. The building will show the plant collection of the city.

The originality of the plantation is to grow in long stainless steel tubes (diameter: 12cm/length: 4meters ). These tubes recreate the natural conditions of the chasmpophite plants that grow in rocky mountain flaws. A scientific experiment is currently underway for over a year in the botanical gardens of Nantes, to test the viability of the plantation process. The result of this experimentation shows that the growth of plants is exceptional for a very low water consumption.

The impact of the tubes on the balconies is minimal. On the other hand on the facades, they form vertical dynamic lines.

Tour végétale de Nantes
Architect : Edouard François – int. FRIBA
Botanist : Claude Figureau
BET : AIA-SERA
Client : Groupe Giboire
Ilot A2 – Prairie aux Ducs – Ile de Nantes – Nantes
Planning : Concours Déc. 2009 – Livraison 2012
Program 9150 m² :
7500 m2 – appartments 6 240 m² (85 à 90 units)
2000 m2 – office,
350 m² – activity
91 parking places
Phase PC


See also:

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Urban Forest
by MAD
Beirut Terraces by Herzog
& de Meuron
Gwanggyo Power Centre
by MVRDV

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Bottière Chenaie by Block Architects

French studio Block Architects have completed a building Nantes, France, clad in multi-coloured stripes derived from the aesthetics of vegetable farms. (more…)

Manny by Tétrarc

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