Colleen Kelly

Level 7

My design for Sligo Gaol boutique hotel aspires to create an experience that both challenges and defies guest’s visual perception of space. Small glimmers of light enter only through the small cell windows which are enclosed with aged iron bars. My design echoes the building features narrow and tall spaces, and dark and cold ambience, of the existing building. The design draws on the enigmatic energy, unnatural presence and confined, defined darkness that penetrate the gaol. The design challenges the guest’s visual perceptions and instinctual reactions as they to discover through darkness through discovery, thus appreciating the historic shadowed atmosphere and lingering spirit of Sligo Gaol. This strategy thrills and tests guests’ spatial attitudes. Atmospheric darkness and the living historic presence of the Gaol is reinvented as an exhilarating experience where guests can dine enjoy performance and sleep, all in a theatrical, composition of defined dark space.

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