The historic grape-based white spirit, Pisco, is the basis for the national drink of both Peru and Chile. With production commencing at the turn of the 17th century, the tipple is as historic as it is representative of the cocktail cultures within its…
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Premium T-shirts and basics are a luxury—if you don’t try it, you won’t know what you’re missing, but once you do it’s hard to go back to anything else. With that in mind, the plush and expertly crafted sweatshirts, henley shirts, T-shirts and…
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Madrid firm OOIIO has designed a lopsided photo frame-shaped hotel that appears to have crashed into a cliff face near Lima in Peru.
The Unbalanced Hotel by OOIIO is to be built on the edge of a cliff near the city of Lima and will offer visitors a five star hotel experience. The hotel is designed to frame the views out over the Pacific Ocean like a picture frame.
“A hotel with these characteristics and dimensions constructed in a traditional way would be a visual barrier,” said the architects. “But, thanks to its [the hotel’s] peculiar shape, the landscape is now even more relevant – we have framed it!”
The leaning building will sink into the ground on one of its corners, and it will feature 125 rooms, restaurants, conference rooms, meeting rooms and exhibition spaces.
Sergio Gómez of OOIIO architects told Dezeen today that the firm’s private Latin American client is currently seeking a more suitable location for the hotel – originally planned for south of Peru’s capital city.
A meeting is to be held in Peru during October where a site will be selected. OOIIO told Dezeen that once approved, the Unbalanced Hotel will take up to two and a half years to complete.
Other unusual hotel designs that we’ve featured include a hotel in China that nestles into the 100 metre-high rock face of an abandoned water-filled quarry, a 300-metre “space hotel” that features a zero-gravity spa and vertical wind tunnel, near Barcelona, and the world’s largest underwater hotel planned for Dubai.
See more hotels »
See more stories from Peru »
Here’s more information from OOIIO:
Unbalance Hotel
Madrid-based OOIIO Architecture has developed a landmark hotel building in Lima, Perú.
We have designed this singular hotel for a Latin American promoter interested in creating a unique, innovative and worldwide recognisable building with a moderate investment.
The building is located in Lima, a city which is enjoying nowadays a constant growth.
The plot is located in front of the Pacific Ocean, in a quiet area outside of the city centre, hanging on a cliff with a relative height that appears due to the proximity of the Andes to the Pacific Ocean.
This interesting topography is what we take advantage of to start the hotel design.
A hotel with these characteristics and dimensions constructed in a traditional way would be a visual barrier, so we bet on a frame building that hosts a huge program that could block the ocean’s view, but thanks to its peculiar shape, the landscape is now even more relevant, we have framed it! And the observer will appreciate both, sea and land through our building.
The outstanding building silhouette immediately grabs pedestrian’s attention and it becomes actually a landmark for the more than 8 million inhabitants of Lima, and the whole Peru.
The building has 125 rooms but there are an important percentage dedicated to restaurants, conference rooms, meeting rooms, exhibitions, etc. the unique building’s shape will be the perfect frame to attract people and activities into it.
This hotel achieves an extra profitability due to the surprising, interesting and original design.
Status: Design Development
Location: Lima, Peru
Area: 16.070 m2
Design: OOIIO Architecture
Team: Joaquín Millán Villamuelas, Lourdes Martinez Nieto, Cristina Vicario del Cojo, Patricia Moreno Blasco
Client: Private
The post Unbalanced Hotel
by OOIIO Architecture appeared first on Dezeen.
Le créatif Christian Grewe nous propose de découvrir la vidéo « Travel Love », un superbe montage résumant en 4 minutes ses voyages réalisés dans 8 pays en Amérique du Sud et en Asie. De belles images de la Bolivie, du Vietnam, du Pérou ou de la Thaïlande à découvrir en vidéo dans la suite de l’article.
Vertiginous swimming pools will cantilever like diving boards from every apartment in this tower proposed for Lima, Peru, by Mexican studio DCPP Arquitectos.
The 20-storey residential building is due to be constructed beside a golf course in the east of the city and will feature a transparent glass facade and a series of elevated courtyards.
The concrete swimming pools will jut out from each of the courtyards and are pictured in the architect’s drawings without any safety rails.
We’ve previously featured proposals for a much taller skyscraper with a projecting swimming pool – see it here.
See all our stories about skyscrapers »
Here’s a project description from DCPP:
Sky Condos Located on a privileged area of the City of Lima and with views towards the golf course, we sought to create an icon for the future, a new luxury housing concept in Latin America; combining the idea of incorporating the exterior space to the interior life of the apartments and creating a new relation between public and private areas.
We wanted to get away from the traditional tower; instead of piling up a series of identical apartments, we created three types that adjust to different necessities; each one with a clear individuality using the privative exterior spaces as our main core.
Ground floor plan
We believe that an apartment shouldn’t lack exterior spaces; this is why our main space in each apartment is the exterior public area which contains the pool and a series of terraces that bring dynamism to the whole tower.
Upper floor plan 1
These terraces fill the apartment with natural light and create a game of lights and shadows.
Upper floor plan 2
The 20 floor tower has a facade that is mainly transparent allowing the integration of the building to the exterior; generating crossed ventilation and natural lighting in all the spaces without sacrificing the privacy inside the apartments.
Upper floor plan 3
The floor plan is open looking for a transparency all along the plot and generating the sensation that the apartments are suspended.
Upper floor plan 4
Upper floor plan 5
Upper floor plan 6
Upper floor plan 7
The post Sky Condos by
DCPP Arquitectos appeared first on Dezeen.
We interview an award-winning chef on bringing his distinctive Peruvian cuisine to L.A.
In the summer of 2009 chef Ricardo Zarate found a daring way to share his bold Peruvian flavors with Los Angeles. After many years cooking in elegant restaurants in London and Southern California, he surprisingly opened Mo-Chica in Mercado La Paloma, a food court near USC. With a menu that honored his traditional Peruvian roots and showed off his immense creative talent, he amazed local food scene devotees and eventually won many culinary accolades including Food and Wine Magazine’s “Best New Chefs of 2011” award. Zarate was also at the helm of the most coveted kitchen space in L.A. for four months in 2010, when he coordinated the myriad chefs cooking special menus at the revered experimental Test Kitchen.
Now with his beautiful new Beverly Hills restaurant Picca and a new Mo-Chica location opening in downtown L.A. later this year, Zarate has not only taken the city by storm with his masterful cooking and dynamic flavors, but has also helped put Peruvian ingredients and flavors in the mainstream spotlight.
We recently caught up with Zarate at Picca and talked about his mission to bring Peruvian food to the world stage and his devotion to Aji Amrillo. Our interview and his recipe for ceviche follow.
I came to L.A. because I had already been here and really liked it, and there is so much Latin culture here. Los Angeles is a difficult city to open a new restaurant, it is very competitive but one of the main things that drives me is challenge. Since the year 2000 I knew I wanted to open up a Peruvian restaurant—I had a vision that it was going to happen. I hope that in 20 years Peruvian food will be recognized as Japanese food is now. That’s my goal. People used to think of Japanese food as exotic and rare, and now it is part of world cuisine.
I was very surprised and happy. The reason I opened Mo-Chica there is because I am very stubborn. I opened the restaurant during the worst time in the economy. In 2009 it was hard to get anyone to invest even one dollar. For me, my vision was ‘this is my only opportunity.’ I had to jump into the storm and try to survive. Peruvian food has always been there and now people are starting to pay attention. It was the right moment to do it.
In California, people like Mexican and Latin food. In terms of flavors, people here also like the umami flavors in Japanese, Italian and Mediterranean food. Peruvian dishes have all of these flavors on one plate. That is why I think it is going to be popular. You go to a Japanese restaurant and have very clean, nice ingredients. You eat Mexican and the food is very spicy. Mediterranean has the freshness. With Peruvian you can play with all of that on one plate, since the cuisine has Chinese, Japanese, African, European and Peruvian influences.
In my family we have descendents from the Incan on my mother’s side. Many of the ingredients we are using are in there, like sun-dried potatoes and the many types of corn like cancha, mote and choclo. We also have the Aji amarillo and Aji Panca chiles and herbs like Huacatay. A few weeks ago I went to the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market and we found Huacatay. I was so excited!
Aji amarillo is my favorite ingredient. If somehow that ever disappeared, Peruvian food for me would disappear. That’s how much I love it. I use it in many different ways. You can take out the seeds and make it mild or keep them for a spicier effect. It marries so nicely and is so flavorful, we put it in the cheesecake here and also started mixing it with miso…Right now we are importing then from Peru. My goal is to grow them here. We are working on it with a local farm. It’s tough. We have been trying since last year. Some of the plants died. In others attempts, the flavor was not right. Finally I received a phone call three weeks ago that the plants are doing well. Hopefully we will have the locally grown ones soon.
Another ingredient I would like to bring here is the Peruvian lemon. The flavor of the lemon is different than those grown in California. The Peruvian ones look like limes, but the skin is very thin. The flavor has acidity, but it is not as strong as the lemons here. When I use local lemons, I have to play a lot to balance the flavor.
Yes, in my country anticuchos is traditionally a street food of grilled food on a skewer. Beef heart is the number one most popular ingredient for anticuchos that you will find in Peru. We also cook stomach, tripe and many other ingredients.
First of all, it is fresh ingredients. The second thing to consider is the balance of flavor. For me it needs to be balanced with a kick. All the ingredients need to marry together. The kick can be chile, spices or garlic. Ceviche is a dish that needs to have power.
The most simple one is my favorite—sea bass, lime, onions, garlic, cilantro and for chile I would use Aji amarillo or Rocoto.
For the ceviche sauce:
1/3 cup pure honey
4 garlic cloves
1/4 red onion
4 sticks of clean celery
1/8 lb fresh seabass
1 cup lime juice
½ cup coconut milk
1 tbs Aji amarillo paste
For the ceviche:
1 lb fresh seabass, diced
½ red onion, sliced
1 tbs cilantro, sliced
Red serrano chili (to taste)
Salt and pepper (to taste)
Notes: Aji amarillo paste is a yellow Peruvian chili paste that you can find in different Latin markets. You can substitute the serrano chili for either jalapeño or habanero chilis to taste.
Peruvian, London-based architect Vladimir Kalinowski has completed two homes arranged round a shared courtyard in Lima, Peru.
Called KH+DH House, the building was designed for two elderly couples to live separately but socialise in the central space.
Both residences operate on ground level but have an additional upper storey for guests.
Photographs are by Vladimir Kalinowski.
The information below is from Kalinowski:
KH+DH House / Vladimir Kalinowski
The brief was to develop two independent houses for two couples.
The concept focused on arranging both houses around a central court yard which would become a connecting point not only perceptually, between the two buildings, but also programmatically, as a place were both couples could meet and socialize.
The relation between interior and exterior became a crucial aspect of the quality of the space.
The main rooms of both houses open up either to a garden or the courtyard, introducing the exterior into the inside of the building, enhancing the scale of the rooms, and allowing for good natural light, and ventilation.
The main programme of the houses has been located on the ground floor, allowing it to work on one level, but due to the request from both clients, extra rooms for guests were fitted on the first floor.
Architect: Vladimir Kalinowski
Location: Lima, Peru
Contractor: Mario Mejia
Site Area: 910m²
Built Area: 500m²
Project Year: 2008-2010
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| Apartment block in Lima by Hackenbrioch Architekten | Double Family Home by Chris Lim | More stories about houses |
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