Boscolo Hotels Milano

Studio Italo Rota have designed luxury, modern and colorful interior of Boscolo Exedra Hotel in Milan, Italy. The goal ideas for this design is make the hotel become places that identify the city. The hotel is a place where cultures come together and meet so this is must be open to everyone and not only the resident guests.

Boscolo Exedra Hotel is the seventh five star hotel located in a building which dates back to the 1920’s in premises which were formerly occupied by a bank and after one year of hard work and 150 million Euro on renovations the brand new Boscolo Exedra Hotel // Milano runs over a surface area of 15,000 square meters. All of the Boscolo Hotels respect for architecture as each one has been established following renovation work on historical buildings, a distinctive trait, that has made it a true mission for the company to restore the heritage of architecture and buildings.

The striking scenography of the hall, with its harlequin sculptures, creates the ideal environment for a warm and unforgettable welcome. The hall, the reception and the elegant restaurant are designed as a single large space, ensuring visual continuity of their various functions. The property also provides guests with a glamorous bar/ lounge and an original Champagnerie, the perfect location in which to enjoy delicious cocktails and excellent light meals. The hotel was built in 2009 and is spread over 9 floors. It has a total of 154 guest rooms and luxury suites.

The guest rooms and luxury suites are decorated in contemporary style and embellished by a number of dynamic design features. The designer has appointed them using soft colours, choice materials and design pieces. Spacious and welcoming, the suites are specially designed to cater for guests’ complete physical and spiritual wellbeing. Each suite is different, with its own unique layout. Each one comes with an en-suite bathroom with shower and bathtub, a hairdryer, a double or king-size bed, a direct dial telephone, a satellite/ cable television and Internet access. A safe, a minibar, individually adjustable heating/ air conditioning and a terrace also come as standard features.

See more information about this project here.

Luzern University

Project: UNI-PHZ Luzern
Author: Enzmann + Fischer
Conclusion date: 2011
Location: Frohburgstrasse 3, Luzern, Switzerland

Swiss Transport Museum

Annette Gigon / Mike Guyer Architekten

The current project is based on the 1999 competition. At that point the brief represented an urban design vision for the gradual renovation of the museum complex with its various buildings exhibiting the different means of transport, as well as a new building for the Road Transport Hall.

At the beginning of 2005 the project was resumed. In the first construction phase a new entrance building (Futurcom) was also to be provided in addition to the replacement building for the Road Transport Hall. This urban design strategy enables the generation of a central open courtyard (Arena), which in the new scheme should remain undeveloped and creates space for temporary, themed exhibitions.

The new entrance building forms a bridge-like link between the existing buildings on Lidostrasse (the IMAX, the Rail Transport Hall and the high-rise building). It contains on the ground floor the ticket office, shop area and both restaurants – one offers table service and opens towards the lake, the other is conceived as a self-service restaurant that stretches out like fingers into the arena. On the first floor are accommodated the exhibition areas for communications, the new entrance to the Planetarium and also the services area. On the second floor is the conference area with a conference hall that seats 500 guests and three smaller meeting rooms.

The façades form roughly transparent ‘vitrines’ for all kinds of wheels, propellers, wheel rims, turbines, cogs, steering wheels, etc. The mechanical parts hang densely in front of the building insulation and are behind the façade panes, forming a shimmering, shiny and in parts revolving façade ‘undergarment’. The omnium-gatherum of the various manifestations of the wheel pays homage to this basic element of mechanical movement.

The concept for the new Road Transport Hall differs considerably from the first design during the 1999 competition. Where originally a three-storey building was conceived with concrete shear walls, a load-bearing, glazed façade construction and bridge-like ramps on the exterior, the new building should be two-storied, like a black box, more flexible and in particular more economical. It should be a structure that is reminiscent of those buildings countrywide that are designed for the storage and housing of cars, i.e. multi-storey car parks. Instead of negotiating the floors via ramps, an automated parking system is employed; a shelf-like structure operated by a mechanical lift displays the collection of classic cars (or even new models) densely positioned one above the other and out of reach. At the touch of a button visitors can bring one of the cars closer to them and look at it up close. The connection to the open areas on the ground and first floors enables the possibility of running different themed exhibitions parallel to this. A workshop shows the visitors how the vehicles are maintained and repaired.

The facade cladding of the mainly closed building volume is composed of sheet metal in differing formats and colours. However, standard facade sheeting will not be employed, nor metal from car bodies (as envisaged during the preliminary project), but rather they will be clad from the sheet metal boards that direct traffic – we are referring to traffic signboards: destination and orientation boards, instruction signs, manditory signs, prohibition signs, placename signs. The signboard walls, which spatially delimit the Road Transport Hall, indirectly refer to the great latitude of private transport, which is directed and regulated with the help of such boards. The signs also refer to numerous localities that are connected via different road networks. Amongst them might be the home towns and cities of the visitors, who arrived at the Swiss Museum of Transport via diverse traffic routes and with different means of transport and here can discover more about (their) mobility.

On the rear facade, towards the neighbouring buildings, the signs are reverse mounted, meaning that the printed side faces into the building while the untreated, metal side faces outwards. Thus the neighbours see these boards just as road users would see those signs meant for the oncoming traffic - from the rear side.

information from Gigon/Guyer Architekten

Hotel City Garden

The Parkhotel in Zug planned to erect a temporary ancillary hotel building on a public site that in 12 to 15 years time will be used as the services area for a road building project.

Despite the limited life–span this hotel was to meet the requirements of a four–star facility and to have an unmistakeable character.

The Swiss office EM2N  developed this project from the serial character of hotel buildings. The standard layout of bedrooms next to each other is transformed into an expressive building volume by swivelling the module. The sculptural façade corresponds with an internal corridor figure; the building is given a head and an end.

The idyllic location between the trees on the edge of the woods led to the idea of a reflective façade of polished chrome steel. The facetted building volume mirrors its natural surroundings and transforms the place into a kaleidoscope of building and nature.

The short period for which the building will be used called for a time-saving construction method, which led to the use of a combined system (timber frame braced by a concrete core).

Project: Hotel City Garden
Author: EM2N

Conclusion date: 2009
Location: Metallstrasse 20, CH – 6304 Zug
Client: MZ–Immobilien AG, Zug
Cost: CHF 18 Million

Postcards from the Future

Make this trip! Postcards from the Future.

Who hasn’t had yet made this trip, having visions of the future, or at least imagined a different world?

To share images that bring new ideas to life and, ate the same time, frame the climate change debate, it’s the main goal of the exhibition “Postcards from the Future” in London. If you plan to travel to London, Until 6 March 2011, a display of 14 impressive images will be on display at the Museum of London. Food scarcity, rising sea levels and how all Londoners will need to innovate and adapt to survive are highlighted in this exhibition.

Is curious to perceive scenarios created for areas that some of us might well know. Is the case of the Norman Foster building, the Swiss Re Tower in London squatted after the collapse of the global economy. This iconic City office tower is here transformed into a high-rise housing building. Originally converted into luxury flats, the block soon slid down the social scale to become a high-density, multi-occupation tower block, and currently triggering a potential vertical slum.

THE GHERKIN

PARLIAMENT SQUARE RICE PADDIES

This view across Parliament Square shows paddy fields running up to the walls of the Palace of Westminster. The land that once housed political protest is now part of the city’s food production effort.

In this scenario London has adapted to rising water tables in radical ways. Managed flooding is now the name of the game, as is self-sufficiency in food. Central London is a network of rice paddies – and Londoners’ diet is largely rice-based.

BUCKINGHAM PALACE SHANTY

The climate refugee crisis reaches epic proportions. The vast shanty town that stretches across London’s centre leaves historic buildings marooned, including Buckingham Palace.

The Royal family is surrounded in their London home. Everybody is on the move and the flooded city centre is now uninhabitable and empty – apart from the thousands of shanty-dwellers. But should empty buildings and land be opened up to climate refugees?

TRAFALGAR SQUARE SHANTY

Nelson looks down on a shanty town of climate refugees. As the equatorial belt becomes uninhabitable, people are driven north in search of food and security. People settle wherever they can and many reach London.

This is the political dilemma of the day for all European countries. The numbers are overwhelming. London’s strategy is to cluster the new arrivals in the historic centre, rather than spread them through the suburbs, where most Londoners now live.

LONDON AS VENICE

London has become uninhabitable. Every year spring tides surge through the Thames Barrier, making London the new Venice. But whereas the city of gondolas has come to terms with water, London is overwhelmed.

This image shows the impact of 6-metre flooding, the level required to breach the Thames Barrier.

CAMEL GUARDS PARADE

Traditional rituals have altered beyond recognition, along with the climate. Here, on Horse Guards Parade, horses have been replaced by camels – animals that can withstand the heat of the parade ground. The change was controversial but the London Tourist Board argued strongly in favour. Tourism remains important for London’s economy.

SKATING AT TOWER BRIDGE

As the Gulf Stream slows a mini ice-age brings temporary relief to heat-weary Londoners. Winter skating becomes London’s most popular sport and Tower Bridge is a favourite spot.

The scene harks back to the 17th century when artists loved to paint London’s Frost Fairs. Then, the Thames froze over because the river flowed sluggishly. Now, the river flows quickly but every winter the temperature falls to new lows.

THE MALL – ROYAL POWER

That archetypical British driveway The Mall, has become a wind-farm. Wind turbines tower over flags, as the desperate quest for renewable energy takes precedence over any remaining notions of Britishness. Cars? Now what on earth were they?

Wind farms are usually associated with bleak moors, distant hillsides or faraway patches of sea. But will we see more in our own back yards, even royal ones?

“We want to create a space in which people can consider how climate change may impact on their lives. We are committed to making beautiful and arresting images which tell their own story. We have deliberately chosen ‘postcard’ shots of London, places that all of us are familiar with. By focusing our creative energy on these well- known panoramas, the images have taken on a life of their own.

Even we were surprised by the way the story unfolded as the scene was created. Each picture has become a mini soap-opera, alive with colour, drama, triumph and adversity as our city is transformed and Londoners adapt to meet this change.” in: The city digitally transformed by the illustrators Robert Graves and Didier Madoc-Jones.

After several months of “harassment”, I finally accepted to share something in this blog.