Ljubljana-based architecture firm Enota has built a hotel encapsulated by "aggressive façade" made of interwoven white fences in Lipica, Slovenia. 

Named Hotel Maestoso, the 7,785-square-metre hotel was completed as a result of an open anonymus competition announced in 2018. Enota released first visuals of the hotel complex in 2020. 

Enota's Hotel Maestoso was completed as the first component of a masterplan that includes a casino, social housing, wedding hall, velblanca, hof, mansion, castle garden and club hotel. 

General layout of the masterplan. Image © Enota 

The studio created a complex-looking façade that blurs the boundaries between inside and outside. Every element is intertwined each other, as white fences establish a new, light load-bearing structure of the balconies. 

Located within the Stud Farm in Lipica, the Stud Farm is one of the most remarkable natural and cultural monuments in Slovenia. 

The area of cultivated karst landscape comprises laid-out pastures and meadow areas featuring protective fences, oak groves, and tree lanes. 

Lipica's historic built core emerged as a whole in the early decades of the 17th century and, through the ages, it continued to develop. In the 1970s, large tourist accommodation buildings were constructed in response to the exceptionalism of Stud Farm Lipica piquing the interest of visitors from across the world.

Hotel Maestoso becomes the largest of all of the tourist accommodation structures in Lipica, and it serves as the primary point of contact between visitors and the stud farm environment. 

The hotel features an "aggressive appearance" due to the use of architectural elements of a specific period - poses a strong, even distracting contrast with the smoothness of the access paths used to access the complex as a whole. 

The façade is composed of a distinctive line of white fences, undulating among the green tree lanes and upkept natural landscape of grazing herds of celebrated white horses, abruptly terminates at the parking area and overbearing presence of an existing hotel building.

"A primary focus in designing the renovation and expansion of the hotel was to find a way to tone down the building's presence in the space," said Enota. 

"That focus led to a plan to de-materialize the built masses." 

"The proposed intervention was to purge the hotel's facade of all added architectural elements, and to unify the structure's expression by establishing a new, light load-bearing structure of balconies," the firm added.

Introducing these white fences as a new structural membrane, it envelops the entire hotel and swimming pool area, establishing a sort of buffer between the buildings and the landscape. 

"The interplay of light and shadows breaks down the monolithic built masses and, together with the envisaged greening of the existing volume with climbing plants, de-materializes the building to the greatest extent possible, while endowing it with a distinctive and recognizable character," added the studio.

Contrary to its appearance, the interiors of the renovated hotel and pool section are designed as a modern interpretation of the interior spaces of the horse stables. 

Accordingly, the public program is designed as a particularly flexible space, with folding partition walls making it adaptable to any given need. 

The existing building was stripped to its raw concrete structure, which remains visible and acts as a suitable frame for the minimal additional interventions, ensuring a warm expression of the interior space.

The use of materials found in stables, carefully designed lighting, and small, movable furnishings combine to form a warm space that logically enhances the unique program and location of the complex.

Enota is designing an extension for pool and wellness of Hotel Kardial with sinuous terraces in Banja Vrućica, Bosnia And Herzegovina. Termalija Family Wellness complex in Slovenia and Koper Central Park in Koper, coastal town in Slovenia are significant works of the studio. 

Enota was founded in 1998 with the goal of creating a contemporary and critical architectural practice based on a collective approach to the development of architectural and urban solutions.

Enota is led by founding partners and principal architects Dean Lah and Milan Tomac.

Project facts

Project name: Hotel Maestoso

Architects: Enota 

Year: 2018

Status: Built 2021

Building area: 7.785 m2

Site area: 9.970 m2

Footprint: 3.440 m2

Cost: 11.500.000 EUR

Client: Holding Kobilarna Lipica
Location: Lipica, Slovenia
Coordinates: 45°40'07.1"N 13°52'57.1"E

Architecture: Enota

Project team: Dean Lah, Milan Tomac, Polona Ruparčič, Nuša Završnik Šilec, Jurij Ličen, Carlos Cuenca Solana, Eva Tomac, Urška Malič, Jakob Kajzer, Sara Mežik, Peter Sovinc, Eva Javornik, Peter Karba, Sara Ambruš, Goran Djokić

Collaborators: Ivan Ramšak (structural engineering), Nom biro (mechanical services and electrical installations), Bruto (landscape architecture)

All images © Miran Kambič unless otherwise stated. 

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