Spa: The Latest Architecture and News

In constantly changing industry of architectural design, the rebirth of organic shapes stands as a testament to the power of design. “Following years of linear, clean-cut, and refined spaces, curved silhouettes were revived, became one of the dominating interior design trends across the world.” Aiming to redefine the boundaries of physical spaces and conventional forms, these curves are often times inspired by nature. In fact, organic architecture symbolizes a departure from the static, reflecting the essence of our technological age.

This curated selection of the Best Unbuilt Architecture highlights projects submitted by the ArchDaily community that demonstrate the use of organic shapes in various forms of architecture and program use. Many times, organic architecture stands as a testament to what we are able to make in 2024, innovating in structural and material technology. From Vincent Callebaut’s HospiWood to Zomorrodi & Associates’ Cadence Art Center, these instances showcase this shift in desigin thinking. Whether its a residential villa in the United States or a resort centered around a curved pool in the Netherlands, organic architecture has been trending globally.

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Architectural competitions play a crucial role in developing the architectural profession and in advancing the quality of the built environment. They are also an opportunity for architects to showcase their creativity and experiment with innovative or unexpected architectural solutions, be it for real or imagines contexts. This week's curated selection of Best Unbuilt Architecture highlights different competition-winning designs submitted by the ArchDaily Community.

From a spa and wellness center seamlessly integrated into the mountainous landscape of Austria to a refurbished city center that creates opportunities for social interaction in one of Bulgaria’s largest pedestrian city centers, the round-up spans various programs, scales, and attitudes toward the built or natural environment. The selected projects represent explorations in various design solutions, materials, and construction methods. They also showcase the broadness of possible responses ignited by site-specific conditions, from the volcanic landscape of Iceland, to the picturesque hills of the Kerala region in India or the lively central plaza in one of Israel’s largest cities.

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Lighting is often a numbers game — too much, and interiors lose their edge (literally), too little, and the dim atmosphere can make a space seem bland. Its importance in interior design cannot be overstated: done right, it not only accentuates a space's architectural features but also makes inhabitants feel at ease. As Carmelo Zappulla of Lighting Studio External Reference explains in a recent interview with Architonic, light is a crucial tool to add an emotional element and "animate a space." It follows that a lighting concept gone wrong can have catastrophic consequences for an otherwise perfectly designed room.

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Big cities and the troubled routine of urban life increasingly reveal the need for moments of relaxation aimed at physical and mental health. This concern has become more evident after the long quarantine periods of the Covid-19 pandemic, when disconnecting from routine became even more difficult. Thus, in recent years, more and more people have been looking for activities and places that provide this rest.

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Gathering the best-unbuilt architecture from our readers' submissions, this curated collection features conventional, original and innovative functions. With projects from all over the world, this roundup is a conceptual discovery of different architectural approaches.

Art takes center stage in this week’s article with a different kind of museum for Burning Man, a futuristic art center in Slovakia, a museum dedicated to writing, and the Chinimachin Museum, inspired by the urban fabric of the city of Bayburt in Turkey. Moreover, the editorial showcases integrated houses, a redevelopment of a city block in London and mixed-use projects in Ukraine and Poland. New highlighted functions include a concrete lighthouse in Greece, a retirement complex in the Rocky Mountains of Lebanon, and a thermal hotel and spa in Cappadocia.

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Project Design Group has released details of their KentPlus YALOVA Wellness SPA Resort in Armutlu, Turkey. Situated in an idyllic, hilly region with sweeping sea views, the masterplan seeks to “enable residents to re-establish contact with nature” through buildings “partially lost” in the landscape.

Combining residential, hotel, and social facilities, the 330,000-square-meter scheme contains 14 different apartment block typologies, with a total of 163 blocks and 1001 apartments.

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Spas, swimming pools, and saunas are spaces to which we turn in search of positive experiences, especially healing and sanitation. What characterizes all of these spaces is a requirement to wear little clothing--or even none at all--meaning that these spaces have very different expectations regarding nudity, privacy, and the human body when compared to other forms of architecture. From the point of view of design, nudity requires specific spatial conditions, forcing architects to think carefully about details such as the opacity of materials and the dimensions of space. With this in mind, this week we present a selection of the 15 best images of healing spaces, captured by renowned photographers such as Kevin Scott, Clément Guillaume, and Marcello Mariana.

The Sunshine Coast of Australia’s Yaroomba Beach is about to get a $900 million upgrade. The integrated, mixed-use development will be the first 5-star resort developed on the Sunshine Coast in 30 years. HASSELL has been awarded the work as master planners, architects, and landscape architects for the massive project, focusing on sustainable and ecological goals to ‘touch the ground lightly.'

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Focussing on prefabricated and sustainable means of construction, Italian practices 3GATTI Architecture Studio and OFL Architecture have envisioned an airy forest resort and spa in the historical region of Kurzeme, Latvia. The Pinecones Resort does its name justice by the spiky cone-like units that inhabit the site, made possible through the use of an inflatable roof constructed from ETFE, a lightweight polymer film.

ETFE, or Ethylene Tetra Fluoro Ethylene, is the most extensively used material for inflatable roofing. Being 100% recyclable and having a minimal carbon footprint in terms of transportation and installation, the material is highly sustainable and in the case of this particular project, offers flexible and dynamic building forms.

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Vo Trong Nghia Architects has released plans for The Signature Spa on Phu Quoc, one of the major islands of Vietnam. Nestled into surroundings of vast forests and pristine beaches, the spa will serve as an addition to its neighboring 5-star hotel. The project has been tucked into the corner of the site to provide a serene atmosphere aimed at establishing “a compact and autonomous place of solace, wherein one can immerse themselves within the lush mangrove reservoir whilst nestled inside the bamboo [structure].”

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