Jung   Recently launched in the market by Jung is SD Room, a domotic system, specially designed for use in hotels, that monitors occupancy and appliances in real time, enabling management to keep an eye on rooms.

Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos   Germany   Concebido como una escultura tallada, el proyecto responde tanto al contexto urbano como al histórico. Situado en un céntrico solar ocupado por distintos edificios desde el siglo xviii, sustituye al hotel de 1955, demolido en 2019. Un corte vertical

Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos   Germany   It is evident that the practice of architecture cannot encompass all the complex mechanisms that generate the city. However, it possesses a decisive power to transform the urban experience, both in its spatial aspect and in its construction, through

Alberto Kalach Manuel Cervantes Estudio   Mexico   The hotel complex seeks to distance itself from the voracious American touristic business. Its geometric distribution in plan, its formality overall, and the chosen materials are guided by an organicity that reduces both the visual and the environmen

Manuel Cervantes Estudio   United Arab Emirates   The traditional organization of the hotel, in which the services are distributed vertically, disappears in this project design. The family units are broken up and connected horizontally, providing privacy and comfort for women guests...

Neri & Hu Design and Research Office   China   The transformation of a residential tower into a hotel has been completed with a metal skin wrapping the structure of exposed concrete, thus adding a new layer to the building’s history. While the entrance tries not to stand out amid alleys, the vert

marte.marte architects   Austria   In 1892, Hotel Weiss opened across the old train station of Dornbirn. The new Flint hotel chain includes the old villa, a listed building now featuring six suites, the largest of which preserves original furniture. The tower and the two-floor podium

Onion   Thailand   The firm Bangkok Onion – established in 2007 by Siriyot Chaiamnuay and Arisara Chaktranon – was commissioned to raise a small conference room and a pick-up/drop-off driveway for guests at the Holiday Inn hotel at Bophut Beach in Samui, Thailand’s sec

Kengo Kuma   Japan   Founded in the year 1958, Snow Peak is a manufacturer of climbing apparel and gear with headquarters in the region of Niigata, a popular spot for winter activities like skiing and visits to the traditional hot springs called onsen. The mountainous la

Sou Fujimoto   China   In a tourist village nestled in the mountains, a new hotel and a complex for exhibitions, conferences, and art galleries are unified by a gossamer canopy woven with natural fibers. Sustained by slender metal profiles, the pergola emerges like the ea

Sou Fujimoto   Japan   The renovation of a 1970s brutalist building and the construction beside it of a ‘green tower’ are the latest chapters of a hotel establishment’s history of more than 300 years. Contrasting with the original building, which preserves its enclosure ev

Bergendy Cooke   Morocco   The New Zealand practice of Bergendy Cooke – in charge of the concept, design, and interiors – has in collaboration with the Moroccan architect Amine Abouraoui built this hotel beside the Majorelle Garden in Marrakech. Reinterpreting vernacular archi

Gabriel Carrascal Aguirre Sergio Martín Blas   Spain   The project for the Amador Vineyards transforms the ruins of one of few winery-houses still standing in the center of the village of Cacabelos, a municipality in León province along which the French Way of St. James passes. The new program comprises

Atelier Lavit   Italy   The Lilelo (Little Leisure Lodges) hotel is in the heart of Monferrato, one of Italy’s leasing wine areas, in the Piedmont region. A work of the Paris firm Lavit, the complex presents four independent cabins built with larchwood, taking from the hays

enota   Slovenia   The Ljublana-based firm Enota’s project for Hotel Natural in Rogla, in northeast Slovenia, includes new communal multipurpose spaces and a swimming pool. The facade extends to form a gabled roof. Over time, the stacked wooden elements will age and bl

Clementine Blakemore Architects   United Kingdom   Located in Dorchester, the county town of Dorset, England, the Wraxall Yard complex, an old farm has been turned into inclusive holiday accommodations and a community space. The London practice led by Clementine Blakemore was commissioned to refurbis

Rafael Moneo Lucho Marcial   Spain   The construction of Mercer Hotel, located in the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona, tried not to disregard structural elements, and to demolish without damaging the remains of the past. The main idea behind the project was to recover the spatial character

Rafael Moneo   Spain   The Aragonia Complex was designed with a clear objective: to create a social hub in a densely populated area of Zaragoza, and to do so not through a monumental affirmation, but through an architecture that speaks of the richness and diversity of soci

E2A   Switzerland   Europaallee is by far the largest real estate development in the heart of Zurich and lies just beyond the main train station. The site is the final of eight new constructions and is directly adjacent to the multicultural – and rather infamous – distr

Tuñón y Albornoz Arquitectos   Spain   Built over different periods starting in the 15th century, the Paredes-Saavedra House is a small-size urban fortress within the walled area of the city of Cáceres. The building is organized on three floors around a small asymmetrical interior atrium

Smiljan Radic   Spain   Recently the Solo Houses group unveiled its project for a hotel designed by the Chilean architect Smiljan Radic, and its acquisition of the Venta d’Aubert winery in the Aragonese municipality of Creta. The gallerists Christian Boudais and Eva Albarrá

Snøhetta   Sweden   This addition to the renowned Treehotel hovers ten meters above the ground within the tree canopy, in the tall pine forest of Northern Sweden. The complex features another six tree rooms designed by Nordic architects. The 55-square meter (two bedroom

BIG Bjarke Ingels Group   Sweden   Suspended between trees in the Swedish locality of Harads, about 50 kilometers south of the Arctic Circle, this lodge called Biosphere which is part of the Treehouse hotel is wrapped in 350 wooden birdhouses. Designed by the Danish firm Bjarke Ingels

Summary   Portugal   In a remote spot of the Portuguese village of Paradinha (Alvarenga), in Aveiro District, eleven cabins are carefully arranged around existing trees, following the natural topography. The place being hard to reach warranted simplifying the building pr

Part of an agritourism project located in the foothills of the Laurentian Mountains, a Nordic horticulture farm has on its premises added four micro-refuges designed by the Quebec-based architecture firm Atelier L’Abri. Shaped like isosceles triangle

In the Swedish locality of Jukkasjärvi, 200 km north of the Arctic Circle, one finds Icehotel 365, the rooms of which are and built with snow and ice, including the suite named A Midsummer Night’s Dream, designed by Carl Philip Bernadotte and Oscar L

The New York Times   Gisela Williams   There are architects who have shaped certain places in such singular and profound ways — Luis Barragán and Mexico City, Albert Frey and Palm Springs — that it’s hard to think of one without the other. Increasingly, the same is true of Antoni Esteva a

At the foot of the imposing Sciliar massif in the Dolomites, the popular Parc Hotel Florian has been expanded, with ten new suites grouped in a stand-alone two-floor complex that emulates tree houses. In order not to break the continuity of the surro

Located in the coastal town of S'Illot, on the Sa Coma beach, the MiM Mallorca facility of the Majestic Hotel GROUP has obtained LEED V4 certification – the Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design stamp issued by the Green Building Council si

On a plateau close to the Jostedal Glacier, overlooking it, stand these wooden cabins for use by hikers, designed by the Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta to withstand the harsh climate conditions, including strong winds, of this mountainous zone.

The Economist   A book of photography offers an offbeat look at a little-seen city. At the beginning of “Pyongyang”, a song of 2015 by the British band Blur, Damon Albarn, the vocalist, sings...

The firm founded in London by the late Zaha Hadid and now headed by Patrik Schumacher has in the skyscraper district of Dubai just completed Hotel Opus ME, one of those buildings whose hollows perhaps cost more than their solid parts. Contorted to th

China has the geographic entity of a continent, the economic potential of a small planet, and the complexity of a macrocosmos with room aplenty for different geographies, tongues, and idiosyncracies. China is the politically unanimous country organiz

As regards Spanish architects succeeding internationally, the firm of Fuensanta Nieto and Enrique Sobejano boasts an already long list of projects located in Germany, Austria, and Estonia (see Arquitectura Viva 209), the most recent addition to which

Dead Inside   It was the largest hotel in Japan. It is located on a remote volcanic island, almost 300 km from Tokyo. No beaches, only divers will find something to do. Unfortunately, it was not sustainable for such a large hotel to remain open. Despite several at

The mountainous Yangshuo Country in southern China has just seen the opening of the Alilo Yangshuo resort hotel complex designed by the Beijing-based firm Vector Architects. The project involved retaining and repurposing the installations of an old,

Luis Fernández-Galiano   From the classical Grand Tour to the contemporary road movie, the journey has always been a route of discovery. Be it a study tour or a random wandering on wheels or rails, moving to other physical, social and cultural geographies is both an educatio

In their particular responses to climate, reinterpretations of local materials, and rapport with the landscape, the hotels featured in this section reflect the genius of place.

José Miguel Iribas   Since the advent of modernity, the form taken by hotel buildings and complexes has evolved in parallel with notions like leisure, tourism, or business.

En el bosque atlántico de la brasileña costa de Itacare, un bello entorno natural protegido por una restrictiva legislación edilicia, se encuentra el hotel diseñado por el estudio paulista de Mónica Drucker y Rubén Otero. Levitando sobre el terreno,

Punta del Este es uno de los destinos turísticos más atractivos de Uruguay, y también uno de su más singulares enclaves geográficos, al estar ubicado en el extremo meridional del país, en una franja de tierra de tan sólo un kilómetro de ancho, allí

Salpicando las pendientes rocosas del Valle de Guadalupe, una región vitivinícola situada en la Baja California, en México, se posan, al modo de palafitos terrestres, las cabañas diseñadas por la oficina de San Diego Graciastudio para el hotel Endémi

El equipo JDS Architects, dirigido por el belga-danés Julien De Smedt, ha resultado el ganador del concurso restringido convocado para construir un hotel de cinco estrellas y un edificio de oficinas en el distrito financiero de Hangzhou, capital de Z

El célebre edificio de los grandes almacenes La Samaritaine, uno de los iconos de la arquitectura pompier de la capital parisina, tendrá pronto un nuevo programa y una nueva imagen. Tras un proceso en el que se han visto implicados diversas instituci

La ciudad de Palma asiste al crecimiento pausado del edificio que el arquitecto Francisco Mangado ha proyectado para el nuevo Palacio de Congresos y Hotel de la capital mallorquina. Resultado de un concurso en el que participaron prestigiosos estudio

José Morales y Sara de Giles, del estudio sevillano MGM, han ganado el concurso para la Hospedería de Fregenal de la Sierra, en Badajoz. La convocatoria, a la que se presentaron noventa propuestas, planteaba la reconversión en establecimiento turísti

Steven Holl acaba de concluir en Shenzhen su segundo proyecto de escala colosal en China: el Vanke Center, más conocido como rascacielos horizontal (véase AV Proyectos 34). Con la altura del Empire State en horizontal, el edificio, apoyado sobre ocho