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Advertorial content: Creatives, makers and independents all share the same basic desire: the freedom of choice. However, with the mounting pressures of a growing global marketplace, there is an increasing need for designers and artists not only to produce compelling…
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To put together their bespoke suite at New York’s Rockaways’ buzzed-about Playland Motel, designer Shanan Campanaro of Eskayel and interior designer Michelle Zacks of S P A C…
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by Eva Glettner Prolific artist Aaron De La Cruz was initially inspired to paint because he idolized his older brother. His now-signature style—which bounces from design, graffiti to illustration—is highly stylized and technical, blending influences from Mayan…
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When citizenM announced they were opening their first American outpost in Times Square, we were a bit skeptical. After a stay, however, we were happily proven wrong—they’ve created an oasis in the middle of one of…
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News: Zaha Hadid Architects has unveiled images of a 40-storey hotel with an exposed exoskeleton that is under construction in Macau, China (+ movie).
The 780-room hotel was designed by Zaha Hadid Architects for property developer and casino specialist Melco Crown Entertainment. It will be located at the company’s flagship City of Dreams resort in Cotai, an area that takes its visual cues from the Las Vegas Strip.
Conceived as a monolithic block with a series of voids carved through its centre, the hotel will be encased behind a latticed structure.
It will contain 150,000 square metres of floor space, and will also contain meeting and event facilities, restaurants, a spa and an elevated swimming pool.
“The design combines dramatic public spaces and generous guest rooms with innovative engineering and formal cohesion,” said the architects in a statement.
The building will be Melco Crown’s fifth hotel in Macau which, like Hong Kong, is a Special Administrative Region of China.
Construction started on the building in 2013 and is set to be completed by 2017.
Here are some more details from Zaha Hadid Architects:
The Fifth Hotel of City of Dreams Macau
Melco Crown Entertainment, a developer and owner of casino gaming and entertainment resort facilities in Asia, has unveiled the project details and design of the fifth hotel tower at City of Dreams, the company’s flagship property in Cotai, Macau.
With 40 floors and a gross floor area of 150,000 square metres, the tower houses approximately 780 guestrooms, suites and sky villas. The hotel also includes a variety of meeting and event facilities, gaming rooms, lobby atrium, restaurants, spa, and sky pool. Including extensive back of house areas and supporting ancillary facilities, the tower’s design resolves the many complex programs for the hotel within a single cohesive envelope.
The design combines dramatic public spaces and generous guest rooms with innovative engineering and formal cohesion. The rectangular outline of the site is extruded as a monolithic block with a series of voids which carve through the its centre of the tower, merging traditional architectural elements of roof, wall and ceiling to create a sculptural form that defines many of the hotel’s internal public spaces.
The tower’s exposed exoskeleton reinforces the dynamism of the design. Expressive and powerful, this external structure optimises the interior layouts and envelops the building, further defining its formal composition and establishing relationships with the new Cotai strip.
Development of the new hotel at City of Dreams commenced in 2013. The project is expected to open in early 2017.
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for casino resort in Macau appeared first on Dezeen.
Pathways slice through the grounds of this hotel and health farm in Portugal‘s Penafiel region, leading to the entrances of partly submerged buildings designed by Porto firm AND-RÉ (+ slideshow).
The owners of the White Wolf Hotel asked AND-RÉ to design new accommodation that reflects the values of holistic health and integration with nature that are promoted by the resort.
The architects responded by designing a series of all-white dwellings that are scattered around the site, rather than grouping rooms and facilities into one dominant building.
Each of the new buildings has a simple gabled profile and is surrounded by a raised lawn. This ground surface lines up with the base of translucent windows that surround the ground-floor storey of each building.
“The buildings are meant to be neutral in the landscape, in a gesture that avoids an aggressive architecture imposition, but at the same time with a strong relation with the site,” explained the architects.
“The buildings dive in the ground, in a unification process that enhances the relation of proximity between the user and the site, between man and nature,” they added.
Gravel pathways defined by white retaining walls lead to the entrances of the buildings, which are arranged around a salt-water swimming pool.
The minimalist aesthetic continues through the interiors, which feature white walls, glossy floors and ethnic furnishings sparsely arranged within rooms and corridors.
Open-plan spaces accommodate living, cooking and dining areas on the ground floor of each residence. These spaces receive plenty of light from the glazed walls, while the bedrooms upstairs are deliberately darker and more intimate.
Windows adjacent to the stairwells ensure circulation spaces are filled with natural light, and skylights in the bedrooms enable guests to gaze at the stars from their beds.
Photography is by João Soares.
Here’s some more information from the architects:
White Wolf Hotel
Completed in 2013 and recently open to the public, White Wolf Hotel is a series of buildings intimately related with the surrounding rich natural environment. The built architecture is a realization of the holistic pretensions of the client. The built architecture objects, profoundly integrated in the natural context, provide holistic and spiritual experiences of calm, intimacy, meditation and retreat.
Holistic Approach
“…emphasising the importance of the whole and the interdependence of its parts. (…) Relating to or concerned with complete systems rather than with individual parts.”
The objective was, from the starting point, holistic. Since the first moment we knew this was going to be a special project. The challenge to create a place that eulogies nature, a special place dedicated to the body and spirit, accordingly to the clients alternative ways of living, and even the perception of life itself.
A place where the visitor is involved in the positive thinking spirit and embraces the related humanistic values, far away from the stress paradigms of contemporary lives. A place where one can feel the time slowly passing by, were it can hear the wind caressing whisper and spend long days enjoying the birds sing in the surrounding forest trees and the water running in the creek that crosses the site.
Due to the unorthodox motto of the project, the spirit and expectations from the clients were an inspiration and, at the same time, a profound challenge. One not only related with architecture, but also a challenge to us has human beings, forcing ourselves to question our practice common ground and our posture towards life. This was the only way – and what a good privileged way it is – to fulfil the client expectations.
The result is a place to live or visit, with joy, happiness and peace (so rare these days) with your own body and in with nature. It was very positive to remember that simple values. We now hope that architecture itself can trigger and provoke that same positive feeling in the users.
Concept & Strategy
Instead of a single construction condensing the entire program, the adopted strategy aimed to spread the facilities through separated buildings along the site, adapting itself to the existing natural conditions, respecting and enhancing its values. Thus providing a more rich living experience, full of distinct moments and sensations.
The architecture shape, achieved by basic, clear, direct geometric forms, naturally understood and interpreted; try to provide a natural non-aggressive sensation and a natural visual relation between the user and the buildings. The buildings are meant to be neutral in the landscape, in a gesture that avoids an aggressive architecture imposition, but at the same time with a strong relation with the site. The buildings dive in the ground, in a unification process that enhances the relation of proximity between the user and the site, between man and nature.
The buildings provide two distinct inner environments/atmospheres, related with night and day periods. The lower floors, dedicated to common daily uses, are totally permeable to light, promoting bright spaces and an awakened atmosphere. The upper bedroom floors provide a more private and cosy spaces, with controlled natural lighting, opening to the exterior in generous skylights above the bed, allowing star watching before sleep.
Scope: Hotel and Housing
Status: Completed (2013)
Location: Penafiel, Portugal
Promoter: Quinta do Lobo Branco – Turismo Rural, Lda.
Architecture Team: Partners in charge: Bruno André, Francisco Salgado Ré. Collaborators: Adalgisa Lopes, Ana Matias, João Fernandes, Pedro Costa, Sandra Paulo, Sofia Mota Silva
The post White buildings sink into the landscape
at the White Wolf Hotel by AND-RÉ appeared first on Dezeen.
Paris studio Jouin Manku installed a sculptural fireplace and chose materials with natural tones and textures to give this lounge in Munich‘s Bayerischer Hof hotel the feel of a fantasy forest landscape.
Patrick Jouin and Sanjit Manku of Jouin Manku designed the lounge on the sixth floor of the Bayerischer Hof hotel, along with an adjacent restaurant and a private dining room.
A funnel-shaped chimney drops down from the ceiling of the lounge to cover an elliptical stone fireplace, which is surrounded by curving benches.
Porcelain ribs encircling the base of the chimney also feature on the front of the curving bar and create surfaces with constantly shifting reflections.
Alcoves containing benches interrupt the pale green walls that complement the stone flooring and furniture made from wood and leather.
A restaurant next to the lounge features alcoves containing benches with undulating three-dimensional back panels carved from aerated concrete to suggest a mountainous scene.
“Patrick Jouin and Sanjit Manku’s idea was to offer guests views even inside the room, recreating a natural landscape and fantasy all at once,” the designers explained.
Lighting hidden in the curving folds of the surfaces illuminates their topographical shape, based on “a mineral horizon made of stone and snow which appears to be carved into the rock.”
A terrace connected to the restaurant provides additional dining space with views across the city towards the distant mountains.
Louvred panels on the ceiling conceal lighting and are arranged in a staggered formation that leads towards the windows.
Supporting beams made from American walnut continue over the walls to enhance the natural feel of the space.
Between the dining room and the lounge is an area dedicated to buffets, with two rounded service areas standing on a concrete floor beneath a copper ceiling that evokes traditional cooking pans.
Jouin Manku designed a further room located on the seventh floor called the Bird’s Nest, set to open later in the spring. It will house a single dining table for private events with a view across the city.
Photography is by Nicolas Matheus.
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features an organic fireplace appeared first on Dezeen.
Architecture firm Snøhetta has unveiled images of a hotel that will wind across a rocky outcrop in Norway’s Lofoten archipelago.
Expected to start on site later this year, the Lofoten Opera Hotel will be located on an outlying site in Glåpen flanked by a mountain range. The new low-rise structure will loop a central courtyard, but will offer views out across the sea to the south and west.
“The spectacular view and the feeling of being ‘in the middle’ of the elements are the premier qualities of the site,” said Snøhetta in a statement.
“In a unifying gesture the site is captured in a circular movement, the complex layers of references to nature, culture, land qualities are translated into a band that transforms the site into a place.”
The 11,000 square-metre building will accommodate a mix of hotels and apartments within its curved body. There will also be spa facilities, seawater basins, hiking resources and an amphitheatre.
The project looks set to attract new guests to Lofoten, which is home to one of Norway’s 18 national tourist routes. Stretching along an 184-kilometre road, the route encompasses facilities for tourists exploring the natural landscape, including the Eggum rest stop completed by Snøhetta in 2007.
Here’s a description of the project from Snøhetta:
Lofoten Opera Hotel
Furthest west of Lofoten, in Moskenes community close to the town Sørvagen, is Glåpen.
The site extends out to sea to the south and west, linking the contact between ocean and the tall, shielding mountains to the north and northwest. The location is spectacular, sunny, in the mighty landscape elements, yet in touch with old settlement and sheltered harbors.
Snøhetta has developed a project and looked at a number of factors: the landscape “critical load” vs. new construction, functional and technical aspects of access, infrastructure, ecology and sustainability, connection to outdoors areas and existing buildings. The main goal is to find the development patterns and shapes that trigger the functional, architectural and experiential triggers the plot’s formidable potential. We think it will be essential to find a building program and a scale that “hits”, both in terms of economy, market and individual experience opportunities.
The spectacular view and the feeling of being “in the middle” of the elements are the premier qualities of the site. Plot view, organisation and habitat as form have been inspiring elements behind the concept. In a unifying gesture the site is captured in a circular movement, the complex layers of references to nature, culture, land qualities are translated into a band that transforms the site into a place.
This form creates an inner and outer space, and enhances the site’s inherent potential of an architectural expression. Concept and program are balanced in a mix of hotels, apartments, amphitheatre, spa, hiking and sea water basins within a total size of 11,000 m2. The local beach culture and storstuga are included in the project. The organic form protects and opens at the same time.
Location: Lofoten
Typology: Residential & Hotel
Client: Lofoten Opera AS
Status: Ongoing
Size: 11,000 sqm
The post Snøhetta reveals sinuous hotel
for a Norwegian island appeared first on Dezeen.
More than 50 artists, designers and makers were enlisted to help design the eclectic interior of this hotel in Canberra, overseen by Fender Katsalidis Architects and Suppose Design Office (+ slideshow).
Australian firm Fender Katsalidis Architects and Japanese studio Suppose Design Office used recycled timber and exposed concrete extensively at the 68-room Hotel Hotel.
The space combines a stripped-back aesthetic, local raw materials and quirky additions including brass lighting and eucalyptus strand board to create what the hotel describes as a “quintessentially Australian vernacular”.
Nestled inside the Nishi buildings in New Acton, Canberra’s arts and culture precinct, the exterior is an irregular series of polygons giving the building an undulating shape.
The hotel’s grand staircase made from recycled timber welcomes visitors into the living-room-style hotel foyer, which has been called Main Street.
The reception desk is made from interconnected beams that continue up the walls and onto the ceiling. Two small spot lights and a low-hanging brass orb create an atmospheric space, which features studded metal walls and a tessellated mirror facing customers.
The wood theme continues into the library, which has been stocked by local press publisher Perimeter Books and holds titles on art, architecture and design.
The ground floor bar and lounge is dominated by a perforated concrete ceiling that allows pockets of light to illuminate the pale wooden floors below.
Designer Anna-Wili Highfield created the hotel’s brass Moth and Owl chandeliers based on the migration paths of local fauna in and around Canberra.
Continuing onto the lounge, the space features large, multi-coloured, irregular shaped desks designer Charles Wilson calls feasting tables.
Just off from the lobby is a huge open fireplace bracketed by overhanging concrete slabs. The material continues throughout the space providing areas for seating that have been filled with grey leather seats.
The rooms meanwhile, curated by Hotel Hotel founder Nectar Efkarpidis and aesthetic curator Don Cameron, are an re-imagination of the Australian shack.
The walls have been rendered in clay and feature natural fibre wallpapers to create a colour palette of cool greys.
In contrast, salvaged oak beds covered in brightly coloured throws are coupled with headboards made from reclaimed timber and vintage leather couches.
Adorning the walls are original artworks from a wide range of local and international contemporary artists, plus objects collected over ten years by members of the team.
The post Fender Katsalidis Architects and Suppose Design
Office collaborate on eclectic Canberra hotel appeared first on Dezeen.
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