pod architecture + design Reveals Plans for Boutique Community Hotel in Louisville

Louisville, KY, August 27, 2022 --(PR.com)-- pod architecture + design (pod a+d) of Chapel Hill, NC, and Louisville, Kentucky developer Gill Holland have revealed plans for "The Devonian," a 17,000-square-foot, post-pandemic, community hotel intended to serve local residents as well as travelers in Louisville's historic Portland neighborhood.

Unlike standard hotels and motels whose amenities are strictly for paying guests, this hospitality venture aims to include the Portland and greater Louisville area with indoor/outdoor spaces for community and special events. Along with the 25 small guest rooms, the Devonian will offer a heated courtyard swimming pool, a rooftop deck where Portland-based non-profits can host fundraisers, and easy access to a host of arts and entertainment opportunities.

Like most motels and motor lodges along the nation's highways, The Devonian's rooms will have open-air access rather than interior hallways, and an open, accessible lobby. Rooms overlooking the pool will face inward to provide privacy for guests and adjacent neighbors.

Established in 1811, Portland is an urban neighborhood northwest of downtown Louisville, located on the Falls of the Ohio River. Fossils discovered at the Falls date back 400 million years to the geological Devonian Period, an interval of the Paleozoic Era. Holland named his new-concept hotel "The Devonian" to honor that source of neighborhood pride.

Following Holland's lead, pod a+d partners Douglas Pierson, AIA, and designer Youn Choi used abstractions of the fossil forms found in the area to establish tectonic geometries in the building itself: The exposed structure will feature geometric shapes and patterns visible in the corals discovered in the Ohio River's limestone bed.

The Devonian's specific context is also reflected in the architecture. Located at the threshold between Portland's iconic warehouse/commercial district to the east and residential neighborhoods to the west, the building's rugged modernist form, devoid of ornamentation, suggests the raw feel of an industrial warehouse while the glass-enclosed lobby and open roof deck recall porches and breezeways among Portland's historic homes.

Designer Youn Choi: "The Devonian is a neighborhood compass that navigates regional pulls. To the east, it focuses its view on the historic commercial streets and buildings. To the West, it is a landmark that acknowledges the transition from commercial to residential. To the North, it recognizes its pre-historic era. And to the South, it is an axis to placemaking spaces that are emerging in West Louisville neighborhoods."