Jasper Architects recently announced it has won an international design competition for a hotel located in Kuwait.
Kuwait is a country comprised of 4.2 million people and is largely a desert. The concept proposes to create a 213,835-sf structure that will act as an oasis in the desert landscape. The hotel design is inspired by elements of the natural surrounding landscape and the textures, shapes, colors, and soft curvilinear geometries of the dunes.
A circular roof folds down in a radial array, following the undulations of the desert dunes and creating spaces for private suites varying between 5,963 sf and 6,458 sf. Perforations in the roof allow for direct visible connections from the inside to the desert sky above. In the center of the hotel are common areas that create a comfortable environment where collective gathering can occur.
Each private suite has a unique view that will provide guests a direct connection with the desert. The roof’s touchpoint between each suite create access to the roof through molded stairs. The roof space acts as another place for guests to experience Kuwait’s desert landscape. Additional amenities include a spa salon, a private swimming pool, and common living spaces.
The building itself is planned to be executed with pigmented shotcrete paired with pigmented readymade concrete elements. Wood and rammed earth elements are planned to be integrated into the interior.
The hotel is slated for completion at some point in 2024.
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
CityCenter Takes Experience Design To New Heights
It's early June, in Las Vegas, which means it's very hot, and I am coming to the end of a hardhat tour of the $9.2 billion CityCenter development, a tour that began in the air-conditioned comfort of the project's immense sales center just off the famed Las Vegas Strip and ended on a rooftop overlooking the largest privately funded development in the U.
| Aug 11, 2010
The softer side of Sears
Built in 1928 as a shining Art Deco beacon for the upper Midwest, the Sears building in Minneapolis—with its 16-story central tower, department store, catalog center, and warehouse—served customers throughout the Twin Cities area for more than 65 years. But as nearby neighborhoods deteriorated and the catalog operation was shut down, by 1994 the once-grand structure was reduced to ...
| Aug 11, 2010
Great Solutions: Healthcare
11. Operating Room-Integrated MRI will Help Neurosurgeons Get it Right the First Time A major limitation of traditional brain cancer surgery is the lack of scanning capability in the operating room. Neurosurgeons do their best to visually identify and remove the cancerous tissue, but only an MRI scan will confirm if the operation was a complete success or not.
| Aug 11, 2010
Gold Award: Westin Book Cadillac Hotel & Condominiums Detroit, Mich.
“From eyesore to icon.” That's how Reconstruction Awards judge K. Nam Shiu so concisely described the restoration effort that turned the decimated Book Cadillac Hotel into a modern hotel and condo development. The tallest hotel in the world when it opened in 1924, the 32-story Renaissance Revival structure was revered as a jewel in the then-bustling Motor City.
| Aug 11, 2010
Silver Award: Palmer House Hilton Hotel & Shops Chicago, Ill.
Chicago's Palmer House Hilton holds the record for the longest continuously operated hotel in North America. It was originally built in 1871 by Potter Palmer, one of America's first millionaire developers. When it was rebuilt after the Great Chicago Fire it became the first hotel in the U.S. to put a telephone in every room.
| Aug 11, 2010
Gulf Coast Hotel's Stormy Road to Recovery
After his initial tour of the dilapidated 1850s-era Battle House Hotel, Ron Blount, construction manager with Retirement Systems of Alabama, said to his boss: “You need a priest more than you need a contractor.” Those words were more prescient to RSA's restoration of the historic Mobile landmark than he could have known at the time.
| Aug 11, 2010
Lifestyle Hotel Trends Around the World
When the Rocco Forte Collection opens the Verdura Golf & Spa Resort in Sicily in early 2009, the 200-room luxury property will be one of the world's newest lifestyle hotels. Lifestyle hotels cater to guests seeking a heightened travel experience, which they deliver by offering distinctive—some would say avant-garde, or even outrageous—architecture, room design, amenities, and en...