Canine & Feline Hotel, accommodation for cats and dogs by Raulino Silva

Pet owners know very well that it’s never simple to go on holiday, particularly when they want to go to places where you can’t take your furry friends, or when you have to travel for business. There are lots of “petsitting” facilities around and without a doubt the brand new Canine & Feline Hotel designed by the award-winning architect Raulino Silva in Parada, Vila do Conde, not far from Porto is a functional example and at the same time very appealing architecturally.
The main programme of the complex is composed of temporary accommodation for cats and dogs, a hotel where pets can stay for a few days. The remainder is a complement to the operations in the building - a vet’s studio, a pet grooming room, outdoor education areas and even a pool for pets. 
All of this is structured in three interconnecting buildings, which create three different areas. This solution is also necessary to separate the cats from the dogs, to prevent them all from meeting and keeping down the noise from the animals. All the public service spaces are located in another building.
In designing this complex, Raulino Silva took into consideration the purely functional requirements but at the same time, he also focused heavily on how to fit the three volumes into the landscape so they would blend as much as possible into the context.
The first, single-floor building is the reception and support area, with a service counter, a small retail zone, a storage room, bathroom facilities, an office, a veterinary’s office and a grooming room.
The second building is the biggest and follows the existing topography for the two-storey volume. It acts as a connection between the higher part of the site, where the entrance and the lower part with the outdoor playground for the animals. There are forty-one dog kennels on the upper floor, separated from the central corridor by a small garden so the animals opposite each other can’t have direct visual contact. A spiral staircase takes you down to the ground floor, where there is a multipurpose space, a services room, laundry and dressing room and a bathroom for employees.
The third volume is, instead, reserved for the cats. This is the smallest of the three buildings and has twelve independent accommodation enclosures with a central run around an internal courtyard that serves as a playground area for cats and is lit by a large skylight.
The exterior of the Canine & Feline Hotel has the same colours and materials used in the zone, with some of the cladding made from local granite, the same as the poles used to fix the fencing in the dog training grounds. These granite poles were already in the ground, used when the land was a vineyard. An efficient insulation system guarantees comfortable interiors and the finishes allow for rapid, safe hygiene.
The white architectural volumes of this Canine & Feline Hotel really has very little in common with the usual boarding kennels for cats and dogs, where we very reluctantly leave our four-legged friends. It has the architectural elegance that Raulino Silva is known for, and it makes that temporary separation from our cat or dog a bit less traumatic, at least for humans. The project won the idesignawards award a few weeks ago.

Christiane Bürklein

Project: Raulino Silva Arquitecto
Team: Raulino Silva, Daniela Amorim, Cátia Sampaio, João Mendes, Carla Ribeiro, Hélder Jesus, Elena Marino, Giuliano Pavarese
Location: Vila do Conde, Portugal
Area: 797,00 sqm
Project Year: 2015 - 2017
Construction Year | 2017 - 2019
Photography: João Morgado