Superbude - Hamburg

It’s all about affordability and authenticity at Superbude, the second budget ‘hostel–hotel’ operation from local hotelier Kai Hollmann after the first 25Hours hotel that opened in 2004 (Sleeper Autumn 2004).

Interior designer Armin Fischer of 3meta is again involved and this time he picked up an award at the 2008 European Hotel Design Awards for his efforts. Superbude fits the hostel-hotel category in that guests can take a bed in a dormitory for only €16 per night. Or at least that is the published ‘Backpacker’ rate per the printed post-it rate sheet stuck on the inside of the hotel’s flyer (and still valid on their website when going to press). Double rooms with shower, WC and a flat screen TV can be as ‘expensive’ as €89 per room per night. Whatever price is paid, this is budget accommodation with masses of local style and more than a hint of clever, make-do design.

Hamburg is Europe’s second largest port and maritime references abound. Hefty hessian rope is coiled around stool bases; packing case plywood is used to front the cabinets of the communal Kitchen Club; anchor motifs are stencilled onto guestroom walls to indicate the bathrooms. Other local touches add authenticity. The skull and crossbones motif of local football club, St Pauli, finds its way onto the toasters in the canteen. The stools in the Kitchen Club and guest rooms are made from two stacked crates of the local Astra beer (padded with a hefty leather cushion). Shipping pallets frame sofas and chairs. An array of steel buckets hang from the concrete wall of the emergency fire escape, referencing Hamburg’s ‘original’ son, Hans Hummel who carried water in two buckets held by a yoke over his shoulder. Nowadays a hundred individually decorated statues of Hummel can be found across the city following the original Zurich CowParade idea.

Even the guestroom beds have a local connection, designed in 1967 by Hamburg-based Rolf Heide. The plywood-framed beds are of a simple construction that allows for easy stacking and unstacking, a two-bed room becoming a four-bed room with ease.

Design credibility is achieved through recycling objects and materials in unusual ways. Scaffold poles are used as the frames for tables and as towel rails under the guestroom basins. Copper piping, complete with valves and gauges, becomes the shelving on the raw brick walls behind the reception desk, which itself doubles as a bar counter. In the guestrooms mousetraps line the walls – ideal for holding your key card or keeping the various surf, skate and listings mag’s out of the way. The orange rubber cups of toilet plungers have been screwed to the wall, the wooden shafts notched and “hey, presto!” you’ve got a (very odd) coat hook. Paper cups have been assembled in a globe arrangement to create hanging lampshades. The cushions that cover the pallets in the stepped ‘Kino’, or cinema, have been upholstered in off-cuts of denim jeans. Guestroom desks are a clever combination of notched laminated ply sheets that form a box held tight by ratcheted nylon packing straps.
Even the one extravagance, the ‘chandelier’ in the lobby (Ron Gilad’s ‘Dear Ingo’ lamp for Moooi) is a composition of Anglepoise™–style lamps. About the only other manufactured ‘design’ item is the opaque plastic, workshop-like Mayday lamp by industrial designer Konstantin Grcic.

The dull gold of the clapperboard panels fronting this former printworks in the gritty Sankt Georg area of Hamburg hint at something a little different. The former delivery entrance slopes down and narrows, exaggerating the distance, towards the glass-fronted lobby that faces onto a small courtyard. Here too are ‘Fort Knox’, a locker room, and the ‘Turnhalle’ sports room that includes a punch bag, table football and Nintendo Wii activity consoles.

The 74 rooms are arranged over six floors, each colour-coded in line, one suspects, with the availability of coloured bathroom tiles. The compact bathrooms are perfectly adequate, although guests need to bring their own toiletries. Guestrooms have painted concrete walls and ceilings. These are softened by generously hung drapes with bold patterns and a fitted-carpet that extends up to create a ‘skirting board’. Plain carpets can be an operational nightmare; here they are so clean that the marks of the Hoover can be seen all over.

Bude is the German vernacular for the old-fashioned English word ‘digs’, or lodgings. The ‘share-and-share-a-like’ communal feel to the Kitchen Club extends to the self service ‘honesty’ fridges filled with ready-made meals but doesn’t mean guests have to do the washing up. They are asked to stack their plates. But there is nothing old-fashioned about Superbude. The design aesthetic and price point attract a wide audience of roll-neck and Camper-shoe-wearing workers, mingling with student types and their assorted facial hair / statement hairstyles.

Superbude
Spaldingstraße 152 20097 Hamburg, Germany
Tel: +49 40 38 08 78 0
www.superbude.com

Rooms    74 guestrooms
Dining    Kitchen Club
Facilities    Kino cinema, Turnhalle games room