Inaugurated in July, during the 2021 Architecture Biennale, the hotel on the island of San Servolo overlooks the Venetian lagoon between Sant’Elena and the Lido. If, on one hand, the limited budget did not allow updating the plant aspects of the building, on the other hand, working with limited resources pushed the design team to search for narrative solutions connected to the chromatic essence of the area, eliminating the boundary between exterior and interior with the green area of the park, one of the largest and oldest parks of the city. The renovated building is now a collective space that welcomes the function of hospitality declined in spaces for meetings, work, and study.

Shades of blue are the dominant tones that transform the walls of the stairwells and common areas of the Hotel Centro Soggiorno San Servolo into moments of reconciliation of the stratified memories in the building: initially the walls of a monastery in a very distant time before the year 1000, then of a Benedictine convent up to the mid-1700s, and then a military hospital up to the end of the same century.

The care for both soul and body was later replaced by the torment and suffering of the spirit: the building became the asylum for Veneto, Dalmatia, and Tyrol, for the following 180 years, until the end of the seventies of the last century. Nowadays, marked by the colors of the island, it is characterized again by calmness: an ideal place to linger in contemplation of the horizon, the slow time of the sea, and the fast time of the city of Venice.

The project, signed by Alfonso Femia/AF*DESIGN, involved minimal interventions, measured and respectful architectural gestures which - while supporting the peculiarity of the spaces - have completely transformed the accommodation: 18 rooms characterized by Staygreen furnishings in structured cellulose, with high-performance and minimum thickness Liuni vinyl floors to reduce surface-level changes.

The hotel rooms offer opportunities to slow down and reflect, also thanks to the surrounding textures and to the masterful intervention of Studio Tapiro who created an evocative graphic system of the lagoon’s underwater ecosystem. Personal and collective imaginaries that go beyond the two-dimensionality of the walls, continuing in the internal signs and tracing paths guided by the zoomorphic geometry of the fishes, small inhabitants of the sea that indicate short journeys within the hotel, culminating in the hall, a space of connection, departure, and arrival.

Imagining the feeling of the place

Hotels are often described as “exclusive” and “refined”: in the San Servolo hotel exclusivity is reserved to minds that are capable of experimenting and that enjoy observing, not only the place and its memories but also the extraordinary echo of the lagoon and the Mediterranean transferred on the walls of the rooms, through the photographs taken by Salvatore Greco, Mario Ferrara, Luc Boegly and Stefano Anzini, and printed on the head-bed walls. Light moves through the geometries, breaking into the secrets of every corner, passage, door, or 

visual curtain. And when the natural light is gone for the day, playful suspended elements, colored lamps shaped like fruits - Ciuli Fruli by Martinelli Luce – discretely lead the guests into the serene dimension of the night. The eco-compatibility of the materials and products, starting with the choice of local suppliers from Veneto and surrounding areas, was one of the main aspects of the project.

Particular attention must be paid to the research carried out by Staygreen to develop furniture that is truly consistent - in its material and manufacturing processes - with the concept of environmental sustainability. The seats are made of structured cellulose (KS56) composed of mixed percentages of wood fiber, recycled paper, and natural glues obtained from pea starch, externally finished in “Solid Green”, a technique patented by Staygreen for the creation of a completely ecological product. 

Client: San Servolo Servizi Metropolitani di Venezia Project: Alfonso Femia/AF*DESIGN General Contractor: Attico Interni Furniture: Staygreen

Internal sign system: Tapiro Design project Lighting design: Ciuli Friuli, Martinelli Luce Vinyl flooring: Liuni, Tatami Elements Flint Curtains: Rubelli Wallpaper: Spaghetti Wall Ceramics: Santagostino Digitalart

*The furniture, produced by Staygreen, as well as the lamps by Martinelli are designed by Alfonso Femia/ AF*DESIGN