The new public bath designed by Berger+Parkkinen Associated Architects highlights Salzburg’s landmarks and mountains, and represents a visionary architectural project in the city’s historical center. “The building’s outstanding impact is a result of the dialogue between the new spaces and existing surroundings the baroque gardens known as Mirabellgarten, the old town and the surrounding mountains. The indoor swimming pool is conceived as an expansion of the park on the third floor,” states architect Alfred Berger.
Gaysorn II is a mix use development that aims to create a new approach to commercial design through careful planning and curation of Lifestyle, Work, Play and Grow in a holistic environment.
Inspired by the traditional Thai culture in craft and hospitality, the project synergizes and combines the components of retail, dining, workplace, conferencing and wellness through an integrated and sustainable design in the heart of Bangkok’s CBD and retail area.
Gaysorn Plaza I was developed in 1994 and was facing strong competition from newer, larger retail development in the neighborhood, Gaysorn II is primarily an office tower on top of a retail podium, and it is the developer’s intent that the combined retail area will make it more commercially competitive in the area.
New Chalet 5.0 in Verholy Relax Park with its own SPA complex!
Chalet consists of three rooms with a shared living room and a guest lounge. Indoor swimming pool, jacuzzi, steam bath, outdoor swimming pool with water heating function, cozy terrace with a seating area and a large communal table under the – all this at the guests disposal!
The decision to combine the guest house with SPA under one roof makes the rest of the guests even more comfortable, because most of the possible procedures and kinds of leisure are available directly on the territory of the guest house.
Can Bordoy -Grand House & Garden- is a small 24 room hotel with a magnificent garden, swimming pool, spa and panoramic terrace, located in La Lonja neighborhood, the heart of the historic center of Palma de Mallorca. It is a complete renovation of a 2,500 m2 abandoned building that had been heavily modified throughout its more than 500 years of history. Can Bordoy has been envisioned and developed by businessman Mikael Hall and his family. The architecture and interior design have been carried out by OHLAB, an office directed by the architects Paloma Hernaiz and Jaime Oliver.
One of the most distinctive elements of the property is its garden, not only because of its size in such a dense area of the city, nor for being La Lonja’s largest private garden, but because of the richness and antiquity of the existing vegetation – which includes spectacular hackberries, jacarandas and citrus trees among others- as well as for the sound of the birds that inhabit it. The garden, along with the inner courtyard of the house and the roof terrace with panoramic views over the city, adds up to a total of almost 1,000 m2 of outdoor space. One of the project’s most important interventions has been opening the doors of the garden, until now unknown by the vast majority, to the city and giving it visibility from the entrance courtyard and from the street. Thanks to the new use of the building you can now visit most of the garden through the open terrace of the restaurant.
Wild Coast Tented Lodge is a 36-tent safari camp located adjacent to Yala National Park, on the southern tip of Sri Lanka. The eco-resort’s organic architecture integrates seamlessly into the site, which comprises dense dryland forest that merges into rugged sandy coastline overlooking the Indian Ocean. Showcasing the beauty of the natural surroundings with minimal intrusion on the landscape, the five-star lodge is designed to give visitors an intimate experience of Yala, and is the first of its kind in Sri Lanka.
Peter Pichler Architecture designs luxury “Tree Suites” as part of a new 7-star Hotel development close to Kitzbühel, Austria. The project consists of suites that elevate in the nearby forest of the Hotel, and that share the public facilities of the Hotel like lobby, restaurant, and Spa.
The suites differ in size, and they go from 60m2 to 80m2. The structure is reachable by a glass elevator that brings you directly up to the room. Each suite will include bathroom and bedroom with glazed facades for stunning views towards the surrounding forest and mountains. The larger units will additionally have a private living room and a sauna in the bathroom.
Designed by Blaze Makoid Architecture, this 6,200 square foot house in East Hampton is situated on a long, two acre site that is steeply sloped along the eastern property line. The property is heavily wooded with mature pine trees.
Large walls of floating stone panels are incorporated at the approach to the house creating a level of monumentality as well as providing privacy to the street and guest parking. Behind these two panels, resides a pair of two-story volumes oriented in an offset ‘T’ configuration. A two-story glass entry link frames the distant views across the length of the property via a 12 foot by 75 foot reflecting / swimming pool. This configuration is meant to cradle the built outdoor spaces, as well as a play lawn while maximizing daylight and southern exposure in what is otherwise a densely shaded site. The east/west volume contains an open plan living room embraced by glass, a dining room with dramatic glass “wall of wine” and kitchen at the ground level with a master suite on the second floor.
noa* takes the stage with its latest project: a wellness area devised as a theatre with numerous different interpretations of the available space. A new, fresh take on the traditional Spa concept.
The South Tyrolean practice leverages the incredible nature at the heart of Tirol, Austria, to design a contemporary and ‘stirring’ building. The glass and cement are in constant dialogue with the environment’s morphology, culture, and history.
In October 2018, the Mohr Life Resort’s new wellness area was inaugurated in Lermoos, one of the oldest skiing areas in Tirol just an 80-km drive from Innsbruck. The Hotel itself is steeped in history, a household name for anyone visiting the skiing carousel in the northern Alps in Tirol.
The project has been finished in 2018, it is situated in a centric neighborhood of Madrid. The program consists of a mixed use of shop space and exhibition of natural cosmetics and wellness and a massage with an added a hammam room.
Due to the nature of the program, our imaginary is structured by natural materials and warm and relaxed atmospheres. Therefore, we will use bamboo for floors, and bamboo poles as a second skin in the natural and plastered walls.
Belaroia Hotel and Apartments is an important project for the City of Montpellier and its development agency, the SERM, as it holds a strategic position between the city’s hyper-centre, characterised by its escutcheon form in plan, and new surrounding districts that have appeared in succession.
Its particular position is in fact on the prow of the Nouveau Saint-Roch development zone, and the first of the zone’s projects to be completed. To characterise this zone, the city highlighted the importance of a diversity of programmes, which our team interpreted as a hybrid project, interweaving two hotels, apartments, a seminar venue and an independent restaurant.
The site – the context
The site is right opposite Montpellier’s central Gare Saint Roch train station, and the BELAROIA is the fi rst building you see as you come out of the station. The north terraces of the station overlook the project.
The small site led Manuelle Gautrand to stack up the functions, literally one on top of another, sharing some of the vertical circulation between different elements of the programme.
The complex triangular form of the site led us to design a continuous volume with a succession of folds that unfurl along the north and the east facades, topped by a wide bridge along the south facade.
At the middle of these folds is set a large hollow volume, orientated to the south and sheltered by the bridge that overhangs it. This magnifi cent conch shelllike form is an extra element, a meeting place for all the users of the different programmes, a café with a terrace looking out over the train station, which faces us.
A project designed around public space, and hollows rather than solids
In this particular project, the almost immediate aim was to create, to orchestrate, and to provide an external space for all the building’s users, from each of the different programmes but also from the entire neighbourhood: a neighbourhood characterised by the station and its thoroughfare, by the nearby historic city centre, and by the future programmes that will gradually appear within the development zone.
Providing this majestic communal space was a way of giving a magnifi cent ‘shared’ urban room in the very fi rst building constructed in the development zone, a way of positioning the level of engagement and ambition of this new neighbourhood.
Stretching and densifying a city does not happen without a trade-off, without providing, in compensation for space taken, new public places that constitute landmarks, places for meeting and amenities.
Our urban living room is the fi rst room of the project, a great unifying void around which all our solids will wrap, sitting on a podium that houses all the entrances, it is then surrounded by the two hotels and overlooked by the apartments which crown it. It becomes a sort of urban stage, framed by animated wings (the hotel rooms): it is the starting point and the heart of the whole project.
Around this void the solids are successively distributed on the site, successively defi ning the various surfaces of the void, including that of its roof, to create a half-indoor, half-outdoor space protected from the wind and rain, an open stage fanning out on the southern side, addressing the midday sun and the station.
The programme is both simple and rich: the breakfast room of the 4-star hotel, a place for eating at any time of day and a fantastic bar in the evening, lit up by the giant luminous letters of BELAROIA.
Around our ‘urban stage’, layers of different programmes
The ground floor of the project tucks in along the retaining wall of the Pont de Sète road bridge and aligns with the two other edges of the site. It is consequently partially below ground and enclosed along the bridge side, more generously open on the east and south sides, where it incorporates the entrances for each programme. Consequently, from north to south are the following: – On the north, the Campanile Hotel entrance and the entrance to the underground car park, – On the east, the Golden Tulip Hotel entrance and one of the two entrances to the restaurant, – On the south, the main entrance to the restaurant and the entrance to the apartments.
The first fl oor has a barely reduced perimeter, which, above the entrances to each programme, creates a base of communal spaces: a seminar venue with six meeting rooms, the bar with its magnifi cent terrace – where breakfasts are also served, and a spa and wellbeing centre.
Subsequently the two hotels are found on levels 2 to 7. They are integrated one after the other into a folded continuum, the first fold housing the 82 rooms of the Campanile to the north, the second the 105 rooms of the Golden Tulip. The latter are complemented by several suites over the next 4 fl oors, some of which are split-level.
In order to mutualise some of the vertical circulation, notably in case of fire, the circulation of the two hotels is inter-connecting in the middle in order to use the same fire escape. Everything in this project has been studied carefully in order to minimise the impact of each constraint, mutualising spaces and services, down to circulation and fire escapes. The project is a three-dimensional puzzle, where each square metre is precious, cleverly used and always assigned to prioritise quality spaces.
Finally, between levels 8 and 11, the last fold of the continuum houses the 12 one- to four-bedroom apartments. Four of the apartments, on the two top floors, are split-level: most of their rooms are on the lower level, with one room (kitchen or bedrooms, by request) on the roof, opening onto an open-air terrace with a swimming pool.
Because of their height (from 21 metres above ground level), the apartments have magnificent views over the city: to the north the historic centre of Montpellier, with the area inland from the Mediterranean in the distance. To the south is a more recent area of the city, with the sea in the distance.
These apartments were not actually part of the programme initially proposed by the City at the time of the competition. But the ambition for diversity mixed with that of creating a lively city block and a symbol of the regeneration of the neighbourhood incited us to incorporate some residential into the project. We didn’t want this project to be solely destined for ‘transient’ users. With the block so close to the station and the anticipation of exceptional views over the city and beyond, it seemed impossible not to give over part of the project to residential.
Certainly there wasn’t room for many apartments, but it makes it possible to incorporate long-term life and is a reminder that housing, in all situations, remains an essential component of the city: it needs to be everywhere, and should accompany almost any programme.
It is this permanent presence in the apartments, the programmatic Ariadne’s thread, that ensures the city’s success in meeting today’s demands: to be inclusive and accommodate new inhabitants with maximum generosity.
The facades:
With its great folds, the project does not have main front and back facades, but instead is a continuous loop of successive programmes, all enveloped in the same bright and homogenous material.
High environmental ambitions, among other factors, led us to prioritise very compact volumes, reinforced by an envelope largely insulated on the outside.
All the volumes are covered with a single cladding system to ensure simplicity and unity of form. On the upper section, this cladding is partly made up of sliding panels to shelter the apartments’ terraces, and then on the top fl oor the generous open-air terraces of the split-level apartments.
The programmatic diversity and the particular density of the project helped us to design economically: everything contributed to minimising resources. Density and compactness helped us to minimise facade surfaces and their energy requirements. But even more important was the possibility of mutualising some of the services, the vertical fi re escapes, some of the plant rooms, and the underground car park.
The project has been cleverly assembled to minimise space required for services in order to provide more communal areas and functions for public use. In a fair exchange, it could be said to take surface area from the host city but to give some back as shared space. Even if these spaces remain ‘private’, as they are maintained by the management company, they are open and welcoming to the general public, reinforcing the attraction of the project and opening it to a broader public: not only the users of the building’s different programmes, but also all Montpelliérains.
The facades were designed so as to envelope the whole project in a homogenous cladding system, generally covering external insulation. This cladding was designed to cater for the different functions that it covers: opaque or micro-perforated over the solid areas, perforated with large round openings in front of the windows of the hotel rooms, and fi nally sliding to shelter the north- and south-side terraces of the apartments, providing privacy and shade. Their white colour minimises heat absorption.
The large urban living room is orientated to give onto the station and its own terrace, but also due south to benefit from the sun: the shape of a conch shell, it faces the sun at midday, which is suffi ciently low in the winter to benefi t from its warmth, and sufficiently high in the summer to avoid over-exposure.
In the summer months, the terrace is more protected from the overhead sun, with parasols and vegetation to come. At the back of the urban living room, the last fold formed by the volume of apartments leaves a welcome opening to the sky, allowing for natural cross-ventilation to help cool the space.
The building is divided into three structurally distinct parts: two concrete-structure blocks (housing the hotels) topped with a mixed concrete–steel structure forming a three-dimensional truss (housing the apartments on four levels).
The construction of this element involved assembling 80 tonnes of steel structure 21 metres above the ground. A steel structure spanning 25m, 16.3m wide and 9m high. This bridge forms a module slightly folded at its centre, into which are grafted the apartments and terraces.
A design that forbade the use of a classic truss, which would not have resisted in torsion. The bridge building is therefore made up of 72 interlocking joists, of which 15 cross the apartments obliquely.
Within the apartments, the future inhabitants have been able to choose whether or not to leave the large diagonals of the Warren trusses visible. Those that have been left visible create a ‘loft’ feel in the apartments.
On the north-east wall, the elements were fi xed by a spherical bearing to an insert embedded into the reinforced concrete fl oor slab. On the south-west wall, the lower joists slot into a 72cm deep recess, with a possible dilatation of up to 10cm. A solution that meets the seismic regulations of this zone classifi ed «low-risk».
Perpendicular displacement is blocked by bearings that can slide vertically, allowing for longitudinal dilatation.
The lower edge of the three-dimensional truss is dressed in steel tray, flocked on their underside and the covered in micro-perforated cladding with the same pattern as the facade. The upper floors are braced by a cross of St Andrew. Overall stability is reinforced by the concrete slab of the roof.
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