Hotels and Restaurants: The Latest Architecture and News

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

Architects: Willy Müller Architects (in collaboration with: BPG Arquitectes and THB Consulting) Location: Saint Petersburg, Russia Principal in Charge: Willy Müller Associate Architect: Frédéric Guillaud Project Team: Mario Perez Botero, Sabine Bruinink, Bruno Louzada, Christian Kreifelts, Fransisco Villeda, Augusto Alvarenga, Samuel Martin Guerra, Sergio Pruccoli Collaborators: Elke Gall, Sergio Ramos, Gijs Verhoofstad Structure Consultant: BOMA Installation Consultant: Grupo JG Competition year: 2007 Project Phase: 2008/2009 Constructed Area: 135,000 sqm Model: Fabian Asuncion

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The resort includes a range of luxury residences and a five-star resort hotel, the 200-room Hyatt Regency Danang Resort and Spa. It is designed to resemble a traditional Vietnamese townscape, with the various buildings arranged in clusters, taking particular inspiration from the historic town of Hue, located just six miles away.

Construction has just started on the beach resort and the planned luxury residences have now been opened for sale. As well as the hotel and spa, the village resort includes 174 luxury condominiums and 27 oceanfront pool villas, covering 50 acres of land stretching along a half-mile of China Beach. The master planning has been designed by RMJM so that each villa and condominium offers maximum views of the scenic Marble Mountain and the South China Sea.

More images after the break.