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.

Bofill Taller de Arquitectura   Albania   This hotel and residential complex is located in a terrain of irregular contours in Dhërmi, a picturesque town in the Albanese Riviera that faces the Ionian Sea. The ground plan follows a grid to organize the premises, while the height variation of t

FRPO Selgascano   Albania   Located near the Montenegro border, Shkodra is one of Albania’s oldest cities. An important cultural and economic hub, it was the capital until 1920, when the seat of government moved to Tirana. Along with a natural landscape it has a rich cultural h

Herzog & de Meuron   Switzerland   The hermitage Hotel, located on the shore of Lake Lucerne and facing Mount Pilatus, is set to undergo a transformation. The current hotel, a blend of structures from different eras, will be renovated and consolidated into a harmonious, visually strik

Herzog & de Meuron   Italy   Located in the village of Blevio directly on the shore of Lago di Como, the hotel sits in a parklike garden and is housed within a collection of buildings dispersed throughout the lush landscape. At its heart is the historic Villa Roccabruna, disting

Herzog & de Meuron   United States   The bowery, where 215 Chrystie is located, is a rapidly evolving cultural district in the center of Lower Manhattan. The building’s mass and volume had already been negotiated with the city and the task was to design a hotel and a residential compone

HYBRIDa aZCON D388 Arquitectura   Spain   With a built area of over 28,000 square meters, this apart-hotel in the Port Fòrum area of Barcelona presents a ground-level and first-floor plinth that on plan reaches the edges of the plot, and two volumes that form a V on plan and rise to the 18t

Studio Gang   United States   The firm headed by Jeanne Gang has completed a 265-room hotel building in downtown Denver. Located at a prominent corner and rising 48 meters, it is inspired by the growth Aspen trees (Populus tremuloides). The geometry of the windows evokes the dark

Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos   Germany   The result of an international competition, the project emerged from a take on two fundamental observations of the place: the concept of frontality in relation to Karlstor (one of Munich’s medieval city gates)…

Snøhetta   France   Nestling in the heart of the Pyyenees National Park, the project is a reconstruction of the Barroude mountain refuge that fire destroyed ten years ago. The building will provide a visitor reception center, support facilities for park staff, and accom

Vector Architects   China   Finding inspiration in the architecture of vernacular temples, a new hostelry establishment decomposes into a cluster of courtyards, each one showing a character of its own. A sequence of verandas, thresholds, open-air atriums and ponds – punctuated

OODA architecture MassLab   Portugal   A proposal submitted by OODA in partnership with MassLab won the competition organized by the Barrosinha Agricultural Company to transform its Herdade da Barrosinha lands in the Portuguese municipality of Alcácer do Sal. Encompassing approximately 2,

Eduardo Souto de Moura Luís Peixoto   Portugal   The 18th-century edifice that completed Portugal’s largest monastery now harbors a hotel establishment that endeavors to highlight the value of the heritage site without stagnating it.

Dorte Mandrup   Norway   The Danish firm Dorte Mandrup embarks on its fourth project in the Arctic region. This time, for the brand Norrøna, it has designed a hotel on the west coast of Senja, Norway’s second-largest island, known for impressive sceneries. At approximately 1

Vector Architects   China   In the heart of the city of Jingdezhen, known for its porcelain production, stands this hotel designed with the idea of preserving the constructions of an old industrial complex, including the existing camphor trees. The entire program is organized a

Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos   Germany   Conceived as a sculpted rock, the project responds to both the urban and the historical context. Located in a central plot occupied by different buildings since the 18th century, it replaces the hotel of 1955, demolished in 2019. A vertical cut runs

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

Gramática Arquitectónica   Spain   Labelled in the 1970s by the Australian ecologists Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, the term permaculture makes reference to a system of agricultural design principles based on the patterns and characteristics of the natural ecosystem, which seeks s

Manuel Cervantes Estudio Alberto Kalach   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

The project of the Spanish real-estate investment company Ibervalles is to be carried out by Ortiz-León, a Madrid firm with branches in Lisbon, Shanghai, and Miami. This will mean demolishing the 13-story building at General Perón 27, which contains

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