Architects: TWS & Partners
Location: Jakarta, Indonesia
Principal in charge: Tonny W Suriadjaja
Project team: Arianto, Budi Setiawan, Grace Dian, Gery, Misbah
Structural engineers: Purwa
Interior design: TWS & Partners
Lighting design: TWS & Partners
Landscape design: TWS & Partners
Main civil contractor: KMY
Main interior contractor: BMKK
Site area: 1,500 sqm
Constructed area: 10,000 sqm
Design year: 2007
Construction year: 2008-2009
Photographs: Fernando Gomulya

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Architects: Stanley Saitowitz | Natoma Architects
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA
Project team: Stanley Saitowitz, Alan Tse
Structural Engineering: GFDS Engineers
Mechanical, Electrical, Lighting & Plumbing Engineering: LMR Consulting Engineers
Lighting: Revolver Design
General Contractor: Carolan Construction
Project year: 2008
Photographs: Rien van Rijthoven

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Architect: Pascal Grasso
Location : Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France
Artist : Laurent Grasso
Client: Palais de Tokyo / Electrolux
Structure / facade engineer : ARCORA
Project Area: 63 sqm
Project year: 2009
Photograph: Kleinefenn

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Architects: Rojkind Arquitectos / Michel Rojkind + ESRAWE Studio / Hector Esrawe
Location: Mexico City, Mexico
Project team: Rojkind [Tere Levy, Agustín Pereyra, Raúl Araiza, Carlos Alberto Ríos, Isaac Smeke Jaber, Enrique F. de la Barrera] / ESRAWE [Ricardo Casas, Basia Pineda, Ian Castillo, Karianne Rygh, Alejandra Castelao, Jorge Bracho]
Program: Japanese Restaurant
Client: Dr. Katsumi Kumoto Kawasaki
Project Area: 629 sqm
Design year: 2008
Construction year: 2010
Images: © Glessner Group & ESRAWE Studio

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Check out our first Round Up of Restaurants right here. Because today, we bring you five more places where you can have a nice dinner.

Yellow Treehouse Restaurant / Pacific Environments
The concept is driven by the ‘enchanted’ site which is raised above an open meadow and meandering stream on the edge of the woods. The tree-house concept is reminiscent of childhood dreams and playtime, fairy stories of enchantment and imagination. It’s inspired through many forms found in nature (read more…)

Ar de Rio Bar Esplanade / Guedes + DeCampos
Skin is not a new theme in the work of our office, neither are concepts such as standardization or mobility but the new pavilion of the bar Ar de Rio proposes a new approach to these matters. Although it may be seen as a step forward, it is really a logical follow-up to the original concept of the Bares de Gaia set, in which Ar de Rio is included (read more…)

Restaurant 560 / joão tiago aguiar – acarquitectos
The restaurant is placed on the ground-floor of an old building in bairro alto, lisbon’s city centre. By hosting different commercial uses, it suffered some changes in order to respond to different functionalities throughout the 20th century. Its last known use was an internet café and tea house, both functioning at the same time (read more…)

Lounge MS / Vaillo + Irigaray
The organizational scheme is due to similar patterns of micro-structures, more in line with geometric patterns of liquid and / or aerosols that Cartesian structures. In establishing a working geometry using “soft” and a unified treatment space “airy”. The new space is conceived as a continuation of the existing fence (read more…)

Jing Restaurant / Antonio Eraso
The restaurant is placed in a 3400 sqft. unit with a full south east view of the Marina Bay. It is subdivided into two main activity areas: 1000 sqft back-of-house area (kitchen, staff room, and office) and 2400 sqft. dining area (main hall, two private dining rooms, ladies powder room). The kitchen layout responds to Chinese cuisine (read more…)

Architects: Max Pritchard Architect
Location: Kangaroo Island, SA, Australia
Engineering Consultant: Engineers Pocius & Associates
Project year: 2008
Project Area: 1,548 sqm
Photographs: Sam Noonan & George Apostolidis

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Architects: Ezzo
Location: Felgueiras, Portugal
Architect in Charge: César Machado Moreira
Collaborators: Fátima Barroso, Hugo Torres, Carla Barbosa
Project year: 2008
Constructed Area: 200 sqm
Photographs: Joao Ferrand

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Architects: PK Arkitektar ehf
Location: Keflavík, Iceland
Client: KFC Iceland
Design team: Pálmar Kristmundsson and Fernando de Mendonça
Consultants: VSB Engineers
Constructed area: 530 sqm
Project year: 2005
Photographs: Rafael Pinho

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Architects: Gubbins Arquitectos, Polidura + Talhouk Arquitectos – Pedro Gubbins, Victor Gubbins, Antonio Polidura, Marco Polidura, Pablo Talhouk
Location: Parque Nacional Conguillio, IX Region, Chile
Contractor: Hector Gutierrez
Site Area: 30 ha.
Constructed Area: 500 sqm
Project year: 2006
Construction year: 2006-2008
Photographs: Pedro Gubbins, Gonzalo Puga, Polidura + Talhouk Arq

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Yazdani Studio shared with us the Ordos Restaurant they are building in the Mongolian Desert. As I told you before on our interview with Mehrdad Yazdani, Yazdani Studio was one of the first practices working on the new city, with one villa finishing construction  and also a Concert Hall and this restaurant (also nearing completion), public programs required by this huge development.

During the interview, Mehrdad told us about the importance of the central courtyard for passive cooling, required on this harsh climate. More details about the project after the break:

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Today, we bring  you our second Round Up of previously featured hotels around the world. This time, you can enjoy from an hotel in the middle of the Atacama Desert in Chile to a hotel and spa in Switzerland designed by last Pritzker Prize Peter Zumthor. Enjoy!

Explora Hotel in Atacama / German del Sol
Travel opens up new perspectives, to see life with new eyes. This Hotel invites travelers to stop wondering, and make a fruitful pause. Life, dispersed in Atacama’s vastness, is somehow present at the hotel, inviting visitors to go out and experience first hand its natural and cultural richness, and return every evening back to comfort, free of the sheer tasks of survival (read more…)

Juvet Landscape Hotel / JSA
One of the local residents at Gudbrandsjuvet, Knut Slinning, is building a landscape hotel. The idea emerged at another site, Aurland, but was not realized there. Basically each room is a detached small independent house with one, or sometimes two of the walls constructed in glass. The landscape in which these rooms are placed is by most people considered spectacularly beautiful (read more…)

Hotel Strata / PLASMA Studio
Located on a steep hillside in the Italian Dolomites this new-built hotel has been developed as the interweaving of the free-flowing topography- indexed and organized by series of timber strips- and the serial sequence of appartment units perpendicular to it. Since the overall shape was developed from the local planning guidelines, the linear distribution of units and the views and sun directions (read more…)

The Therme Vals / Peter Zumthor
Built over the only thermal springs in the Graubunden Canton in Switzerland, The Therme Vals is a hotel and spa in one which combines a complete sensory experience designed by Peter Zumthor. Peter Zumthor designed the spa/baths which opened in 1996 to pre date the existing hotel complex. The idea was to create a form of cave or quarry like structure (read more…)

Habita Hotel / TEN Arquitectos
Mexican architects BGP Arquitectura designed this stylish hotel located in Lamartine 201, Colonia Polando,  Mexico City. The glass skin acts as a buffer to the busy outside, while converting into a lamp during night. It also has a really cool pool on the roof top. With 2,500 m2, the construction was complete in 2000 (read more…)

Located in the Bowery, the Lower East Side Hotel designed by the Office for Design and Architecture will feature minimalistic interiors to allow the “guests to use their personal aesthetic as an impromptu installation”.  By designing tempered and laminated interior cylinders for the shower, toilet and closet, and using stark colors teamed with expansive city views, the small rooms seem larger than their dimensions.

More about the hotel after the break. read more »

Rotterdam’s Cube Houses, an iconic building designed in 1984 by Dutch architect Piet Blom, has been renewed and transformed into a new Stayokay hostel. The building consists in 38 small cubes and two bigger ones all attached to each other.

The expressive and colorful cube-shaped houses on concrete pillars are located right in the heart of the city, near the ‘Old Harbour’. Spending the night in a tilted cube is quite a unique experience. In addition to the 49 spacious rooms, Stayokay Rotterdam also has a restaurant, bar and two rooms for meetings and workshops. The interior concept of Dutch designer Edward van Vliet (SEVV) was used as a starting point. Kees van Lamoen and Personal Architecture were the rebuilding architects. More images, after the break.

PS: In the last Mark Magazine there’s an article with interviews to people who have lived in remarkable buildings, and the cube house was included. read more »

Architects: Stanley Saitowitz | Natoma Architects
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA
Project team: Stanley Saitowitz, Alan Tse
General Contractor: Brian Spiers
Acoustics: Dale Pekrul
Project year: 2007
Photographs: Rien van Rijthoven

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This is a sustainable design for a future development that possibly will be built. BURO II already built a project of this amplitude in Guangzhou (China) and won with this ‘Baiyun International Convention Centre’ an international prize at the World Architecture Festival in Barcelona in 2008.

The design of this hotel beach resort is a concept whereby a sustainable relationship with the local economy, culture and natural heritage is central. The hotel assimilates with the natural habitat of the island. The development of this exclusive residential resort of 22.000m² is situated along Mero Beach on the west coast of the Commonwealth of Dominica.

More images and architect’s description after the break. read more »

Architect: Pieta-Linda Auttila
Location: Valkosaari island in Southern Harbour of Helsinki, Finland
Building owner: UPM Kymmene
Construction: 30 to 40 m² / 150 m³
Structure: Wood
Coating: Native woods, Glass
Concept and Communication: Trust Creative Society
Project Year: 2009
Photographs: UPM

“By bending the block I forced the slats into a new form that contrasts with the original arrangement. That which is solid turns partly transparent, that which is strictly geometrical, organic,”

Pieta-Linda Auttila, architect

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Architects: extrastudio
Location: Serra das Minas, Sintra, Portugal
Type: Commercial
Client: Seara da Serra II, Lda.
Project team: Joao Ferrao, Joao Costa Ribeiro, Andreia Teixeira, Filipa Ferreira, Maria Joao Oliveira, Tiago Pinhal Costa, Maria Amaral
Hidraulic consultants: PRPC Engenheiros
Acustics: Acustiprojecto, lda
HVAC: Frivenco, lda
Contractor: Costa e Costa, lda.
Budget: 200,000E
Project Area: 118 sqm
Project year: 2008
Photographs: Joao Morgado

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Architects: extrastudio
Location: Setubal, Portugal
Project team: Joao Ferrao, Joao Costa Ribeiro, Madalena Atouguia and Sonia Oliveira
Type: shop/delicatessen
Client: Rogerio Silveira
Contractor: Sergio Cachão unipessoal lda
Project Area: 35 sqm
Project year: 2007
Photographs: Joao Morgado

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© Jeff Goldberg at Esto

A few months ago we had the chance to enjoy the Standard Hotel in downtown Los Angeles for Postopolis! LA. The renovation of an old building was very well done, very good work in terms of details.

And for the Standard Hotel in New York, André Balazs repeats the formula of good design and details, but on a brand new building by Polshek Partnership Architects. The concrete building reminds of Le Corbusier works, standing over The Highline. The integration at the public space level  turns this building into more than just another addition to the  NY skyline, becoming an urban piece of the Meat Packing district, a detonator of the current renovation of the area.

The 20-story tall building includes 337 rooms, a restaurant (The Standard Grill) and a bar (The Living Room).  Interiors were designed by NY based architects Roman and Williams.

Photos of the construction at Plataforma. More photos of the building by Jeff Goldberg at Esto after the break, interiors to come on a future article.

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International architectural company RMJM has designed, on behalf of developer Őzkar Construction Co., a new luxury hotel that will help “green” the Sogutozu district of Ankara, the capital city of Turkey.

Located on a 14,000 square-meter site, the luxurious 24-story J. W. Marriott Hotel devotes the first four floors to spacious ballrooms, meeting facilities, restaurants and shops in a sky-lit galleria, with guest rooms starting on the fifth floor. The plan also includes an underground parking garage.

The hotel, which will be completed on October 2010, will bring innovative sustainable design to Ankara and will include a unique design of vertical stone fins that will act as solar shading devices on the east and west facades. The glass curtain wall uses environmentally friendly materials such as high-performing, low-e coating and tinting that contributes to the reduced solar heat gain. Plentiful bamboo trees and vegetation will be included in the landscape to offer additional shading at the site.

More images after the break. read more »