Courtesy of Geometrium Studio | Olympus Villa Complex
Long celebrated as havens of relaxation and luxury, resorts offer guests an escape from the mundanity of daily life. These sanctuaries seek to offer lavish accommodations, scenic locations, and comprehensive experiences. From sun-drenched beaches to mountain retreats, or secluded spots in the wilderness, resorts can take a variety of forms, each offering a unique experience. The history of architects designing resorts is intertwined with the development of the hospitality industry and the concept of leisure travel. In the realm of architecture, resorts allow designers to meld functionality with luxury living, creating spaces that offer experiences beyond just residences.
The Multifunctional complex “Next Collection” in Georgia by SPECTRUM Architecture illustrates this by adopting organic forms that blend into the seaside, while “Ethereal Mountains” by the Maden Group in Albania seeks to foster youth engagement in a breathtaking landscape. In Indonesia, the Villa complex “Olympus” by Geometrium Studio presents a unique structural concept where each villa’s roof acts as the terrace for the one above, echoing the rice fields of Bali. In this week’s curated selection of unbuilt resorts, submitted by the ArchDaily community, these themes are explored in different settings and design conditions.
Water, fluid and dynamic in its nature, has long been an inspiration for architects and designers. From ancient civilizations to modern metropolises, the presence of water has shaped architectural schemes and urban landscapes. This elemental force provides aesthetic and sensory inspiration to the buildings that are built around it. Additionally, it poses challenges and different opportunities for problem-solving, particularly as rising sea levels demand a revaluation of coastal developments.
Whether it’s a restaurant overlooking the waters of the Aegean Sea or a hotel nestled along the coastline of Montenegro, architects worldwide embrace the proximity to natural bodies of water. These unbuilt projects, curated from submissions by the ArchDaily community, exemplify diverse architectural schemes that aim to harmonize with water surroundings. From the regenerative principles in the Chabahar Beach Cafe in Iran to a transformative master plan on a floating boat, each project uniquely aims to blend contextual elements with the human experience, resulting in different designs.
Bjarke Ingels Group has revealed the design of Park Rise residences, a new development the Little Athens neighborhood of Ellinikon, featuring modern homes, greenspace, retail, office, and hospitality. The Ellinikon is an ambitious urban regeneration project that reimagines the grounds of Athens’ old international airport and transforms it into a 6.2 million-square meter smart city. Within this development, the Little Athens neighborhood aims to become an integrated part of Ellinikon’s smart urban ecosystem and bring over 1100 new residences to the northwestern coastline of the development.
Architects, urban planners, and researchers from around the world are working on solutions to address the rising threat of climate change and climate-induced rise in sea levels and storm surges. Among them, MVRDV, as part of the North Creek Collective, has released a series of proposals for the city of Vancouver, mapping out possible adaptations of waterfront buildings, landscape, and infrastructure. On a similar note, a group of researchers led by Adrian Lahoud has developed the Second Sea Calculator, a digital tool that estimates the financial damages owned to coastal cities by different nations, while Human Climate Horizons has developed a platform for visualizing how different levels of global heating will affect people’s lives.
At first glance, building a pool right beside another body of water seems a little redundant. After all, why would someone choose to swim in a pool when they have a river or ocean to enjoy? However, for people with limited mobility and younger more inexperienced swimmers, natural bodies of water can prove both daunting and dangerous. Pools not only provide a controlled, secure space for them to enjoy aquatic activities, they also provide a connection with the surrounding landscape.
Land reclamation from the sea has become a popular phenomenon in coastal development. It is the most preferred solution to the need for land in coastal areas and has been implemented for various use cases, including flood control and agriculture. Nowadays, it has become a famous urban response to the rapid increase in coastal urbanization, economic activity, and global population. Countries like China and the Netherlands lead the chart on the amount of land area reclaimed. However, most reclamation projects today take place within urban centers in the global south. Cities in West Africa, East Asia, and the Middle East produce these new lands as economic forerunners for their commercial industry and as platforms to house luxury residences.
But the relationship between the design and production of reclaimed lands and the response of water in ocean environments is complex. It requires a symbiotic relationship with water bodies for stability but can provoke natural forces when negligently imposed on the sea. Ocean water behaviors, including tidal accumulation, sea level rise, connection to wetlands, and aquatic biodiversity, can question the success or failure of land reclamation projects in different contexts.
Response to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Back Bay Coastal Storm Risk Management Study / Curtis + Rogers Design Studio. Image Courtesy of Miami Downtown Development Authority
This Earth Day, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris highlighted the many benefits of nature-based solutions and recognized the important role of landscape architects in this work. At the University of Miami, she also announced $562 million in funding for coastal resilience projects, supporting 149 projects in 30 states, through the Climate-Ready Coasts Initiative of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Vice President Harris’ remarks build on the Biden-Harris administration’s support for planning and designing with ecological systems in an equitable way.
The Danish Pavilion has announced Josephine Michau as the curator of the exhibition “Coastal Imaginaries” to represent Denmark at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The exhibition highlights nature-based design solutions to alleviate global challenges like rising sea levels and storm floods. The team behind the exhibition represents a collaboration between the landscape architectural firm Schønherr and researchers, artists, Danish trade organizations, and scientific institutions. The selected subject aligns with the biennale’s overarching theme of Laboratory of the Future, running from May 20th to November 26th, 2023, in the Giardini, at the Arsenale, and at various locations around Venice.
Foster + Partners, working in collaboration with Petrolina Group, has revealed the design of a new master plan to transform the seafront of Larnaca, Cyprus, into a sustainable and enjoyable area for the city residents, future generations, and new visitors. The resort town of Larnaca aims to redesign one of its main arteries, the Larnaca-Dhekelia Road, to become more pedestrian-friendly, along with its seafront. Foster’s proposal aims to enhance the land’s ecological value and to double the length of the waterfront accessible to the public.
A defining feature of the architecture of the Swahili Coast—apart from its coral stone buildings and mangrove poles used to elaborate those structures—is undoubtedly the ornamented door so commonly found across this coastal area. Richly decorated, and historically often layered with meaning, these doors, apart from serving the more utilitarian function of an entrance, were also signifiers of status and wealth. From this Swahili Coast to the Arabian Peninsula, these doors of the coast are very much markers of their location, representative of trade and migration.
Developed by WERK Arkitekter and Snøhetta, the new maritime center on the coast of Esbjerg, Denmark, opens to the public. The wooden structure is conceived as a gathering space for watersports clubs and other visitors to the harbor, providing the coastal town with a maritime social hub. The circular structure protects the visitors from harsh weather conditions, while the large windows and amphitheater stairs open up views of the sea. Dubbed “The Lantern,” the project represents the winning design of a competition organized in 2019.
The Athens International Airport was decommissioned in 2001, leading to two decades of work for the local government to establish funding and a governance mechanism to transform the 600 acres of unused space into Europe’s largest coastal park. The site has a layered history, from prehistoric settlements to the construction of the airport in the 20th century and the site being used for as an Olympic venue in 2004. Architecture office Sasaki is leading the design to transform the site again and create the Ellinikon Metropolitan Park, a restorative landscape and climate-positive design that will serve as a park, playground, and cultural center for the city of Athens. Developers are planning to break ground early next year.
Living Breakwaters, Staten Island, NYC. Image Courtesy of SCRAPE
“Superstorm Sandy in 2012 was a wake-up call for NYC and made the city realize it needed to better prepare for climate change,” said Adrian Smith, FASLA, vice president at ASLA and team leader of Staten Island capital projects with NYC Parks. Due to storm surges from Sandy, “several people in Staten Island perished, and millions in property damage were sustained.”
On the 10th anniversary of Sandy, Smith, along with Pippa Brashear, ASLA, principal at SCAPE, and Donna Walcavage, FASLA, principal at Stantec, explained how designing with nature can lead to more resilient shoreline communities. During Climate Week NYC, they walked an online crowd of hundreds through two interconnected projects on the southwestern end of the island: Living Breakwaters and its companion on land — the Tottenville Shoreline Protection Project.
KCAP won the design competition for the Coastline of Yantai, Shandong Province, south of Beijing. As one of China's top 10 ports and a gateway city for communication between Japan and South Korea, Yantai Seafront Garden will transform the underused coastal area into an influential economic and technological development zone in Northeast China. The conceptual proposal was selected by its vision of 4 stages along the 95km of waterfront, including water conservation zones, a "sponge city" community, and a resident tidal shoreline.
At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020, affluent Parisians flocked to second homes on France’s Atlantic coast as a nationwide lockdown came down on the country. In June 2020, as the lockdown was eased in England, residents headed to seaside towns like Bournemouth to soak in sunny weather. The former scenario reflects the widening gap between France’s wealthy and the poor, whilst the latter is a reflection of the democratizing power of public-access beaches.
In both situations, what is sought out is the ecological calmness usually found on beaches. Globally, however, there’s an unsettling phenomenon, where intertwined with climate change and policy decisions, beaches are increasingly becoming private, inaccessible spaces.
Coastal cities have always been a point of attraction for residents, tourists, and businesses. Alongside the aesthetic features, their proximity to the sea has made these cities a focal point for maritime transportation with the construction of ports, as well as hotspots for recreational and aquacultural activities. However, the past decades saw these particular regions threatened with a shortened lifespan; rising water levels, floods, and recurring cyclones, along with other natural disasters, have endangered coastal communities, putting their population, ecosystem, and built environment at risk.
A future flood map of Mastic, New York. Right: A plan for densifying the town’s high, dry ground and retreating from the shoreline. . Image Courtesy of Rafi Segal And Susannah Drake
A lot can happen in the space between a book’s title and subtitle, as A Blueprint for Coastal Adaptation: Uniting Design, Economics, and Policy (Island Press, 2021) demonstrates. Here, in a reversal from the norm, the subtitle assumes the more evocative bent by elevating design to the same status as economics and policy. To some, this might seem a spurious move, but the volume lives its creed: Its editors include two design academics and a business school professor, to say nothing about the myriad backgrounds of its contributors.
Blueprint goes deep into the policy decisions that have shaped the brittle condition of coastal infrastructure. It coalesces into a convincing picture of the wider context in which design operates, with the aim of making the built environment more equitable for those caught on the front lines of certain climate change cataclysm.
