Danger Point Hotel
Location: Danger Point
Status: Planned
The pre-history of the Point is of Strandloper inhabitation – the frontal dune consists largely of perlemoen shell deposits. Its recent historical significance has been as a remote way-point and a marker of trade routes to the East, and as a shipping hazard: the Birkenhead struck the outermost point of its reef in 1852. Its wild nature still carries strong connotations of adventure and exploration.
The intention is to enfold the visitor into an appreciation of these qualities. The canting columns of the hotel foyer, for instance, suggest the posts of a dilapidated fishing pier of one of the many abandoned whaling stations along the coast. The lower levels of the resort, the sea terraces, are mounded over and suggest the gradual sedimentation of discarded artefacts such as the perlemoen-shell dune, and also play on the theme of the sea cave. As the site is elevated above a coastal road, the sequence of pools divided by mass stone striations is intended to suggest the rocky coastline below – upturned rock strata between which tidal water is trapped.
