iDesignArch | Interior Design, Architecture & Interior Decorating eMagazine
Interior Design, Architecture & Interior Decorating eMagazine
Hotel Amsterdam Zaandam in the suburb of Amsterdam, the Netherlands is a whimsical real life gingerbread house. The concrete building with a quirky façade of irregularly stacked Dutch wooden houses is the work of WAM architecten. The traditional houses in bright green and blue speaks the architectural language of the region. This 160-room hotel has individually designed guest rooms which refer to typical products from the Zaan region.
Apple has submitted plans for a new Apple campus to the City of Cupertino in California. The city has revealed that the project will very likely be approved. The plans, designed by Foster + Partners, comprise of a main spaceship office building and research facilities for 13,000 employees. There will also be a 1,000 seat auditorium, a fitness center and a parking structure.
Ilum is a distinctive architecturally designed entertainment and retail development in Singapore. The contemporary building by architecture firm WOHA relates to the surrounding neighbourhood in scale and texture. The decorative curvilinear façade intricately detailed the decoration of the historic shophouses.
This magnificent piece of architecture inside the headquarters of Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt Germany was designed by Mario Bellini Architects. The state-of-the-art “Green Building” is an ecologically sustainable office building. The steel sphere inside the building is a fine piece of sculpture symbolizing the highly modernized and energy efficient environment.
Located at the General Motors Plaza in New York, the entrance to the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue is an iconic self-supporting glass cube. Designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson Architecture, this 32-foot glass structure is entirely free of structural steel. Once you enter the store from the plaza level, a glass elevator with a glass cylinder — which is wrapped by a circular staircase — takes you to the underground main level. The glass cube brings plenty of natural light underground. At night, the cube is lighted, creating an elegant glow.
At 12,000 feet above sea level, the St. Regis Lhasa Resort in Lhasa, Tibet is one of the highest luxury hotels in the world. Inspired by the nearby Sera Monastery, the eight-acre resort hotel designed by Denniston International Architects combines the traditional Tibetan architectural elements with modern luxury. The hotel faces the stunning Potala Palace with views of the Himalayas and Lhasa Valley. The exterior of the buildings with stone walls and dark shale pagoda-style roofs pay homage to the ancient Buddhist culture. The interiors showcase works of art from local and international artists such as the six-panel painting in the lobby by Christian de Laubadère. The Iridium Spa has an ornate gold-tiled pool with artwork of a black and white Sea Serpent. Sustainable features such as solar panels and an underground water recycling system were also incorporated into the hotel design.
Built in the shape of the human eye, L’Hemisfèric is one of the structures within the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, Spain. Designed by architect Santiago Calatrava, L’Hemisfèric houses an IMAX theatre, a Planetarium and a Laserium. The “pupil” is the hemispherical dome of the IMAX theatre and the “eyelid” can open and close by using hydraulic lifts to operate the steel and glass shutter. This impressive architectural masterpiece is situated at the end of the dried up riverbed Turia. Calatrava wanted to bring water back to the area by creating a reflecting pool which also serves as a stunning artistic display at night when the lighting creates an image of a whole eye.
Marina Bay Sands in Singapore is an integrated resort with three 55-storey towers capped by a boat-shaped 340 meters long SkyPark with a 150 meters infinity swimming pool. This impressive resort developed by Las Vegas Sands and designed by Moshe Safdie Architects cost approximately S$8 billion (over US$6 billion) to build. The 16-hectre resort combines a casino, 2,560 rooms, two theatres, a shopping mall, restaurants, a Museum of ArtScience and world class convention facilities. The project’s foreground — composed of the ArtScience Museum, an outdoor event plaza along the promenade and the grand arcade — serves as a base from which the hotel towers rise.
