#hotel-design

#hotel-design

"Durango is a true gateway to wild places-mountains, rivers, desert, and culture converging in one vibrant basecamp," says Rajan Hansji, the founder of Terra Vi hospitality company.

On a recent two-week trip to Japan with my fiancé - six cities, six hotels - every stay was gorgeous and perfectly appointed. We wanted for nothing. Except, in most cases, a proper bathroom door. Instead, we spent the better part of two weeks making accidental eye contact through frosted glass and translucent panels while one of us was otherwise occupied. A design choice, apparently. A test of intimacy, definitely.

And Prue Leith's leaving Bake Off. Let us focus, then, on the few, brief bright spots we can if we really squint hard into the darkness see. There's microplastics maybe not poisoning our every organ as thoroughly as we thought. There's Gwyneth Paltrow announcing that she loves a 6pm dinner and early beddy-byes. That's not quite how she put it, but that's what she meant.

In the past, not that many hotels planted their roots in Miami's North Beach, where private homes, condos, and low-rise buildings have kept the neighborhood's residential vibe. As someone accustomed to buzzy South Beach, North Beach felt like the unaffected counterpart, quieter and far less commercialized, with the beach steps away. So, as I arrived in Maison Felix, it was like stepping into a tucked-away gem.

That wouldn't be entirely fair, but there's no escaping the fact that chef Jason Atherton's ground-floor Berners Tavern is the palpitating heart of the hotel. The lobby cocktail bar, oak-panelled, reservation-only Punch Room and nightclub Basement only increase the pulse-rate. Once upon a time this was five lovely 1835 townhouses, which were combined in 1910 to create the Berners Hotel.

Rather than inserting a hotel into an historic shell, the architects aim to let the identity of Can Oliver shape the design of Hotel Nobis Palma.

Indoor hotel pools are architectural marvels, providing not only leisure but a deep emphasis on aesthetic design, highlighting the creativity possible in confined spaces.

In Bangkok's Siam Square, ASWA inserts the Vela be Siam hotel that reflects and refracts the layered character of the neighborhood. The structure takes cues from traditional Thai domestic architecture and reinvents them through a vibrant material and vocabulary.

On arrival, guests are greeted by artist Isvald Klingels' "Ghost Forest" installation, which incorporates fallen tree stumps, snags, logs, and branches, alongside old-growth Red Cedars and a unique 16-foot-tall spiraling Yew tree. This site-specific "living landscape" reflects both the area’s historical timber industry and a notion of cyclical renewal, emphasizing how nature is restored in urban spaces.

The complex marks Heatherwick Studio's first project in Thailand, located in Bangkok's Silom district on the historic site of the original Narai Hotel.

I enjoy mixing materials, citing textured plaster walls, hand-painted tiles, and other surfaces of lacquered wood or polished stone. That's where the richness of the project comes from.

The Waldorf Astoria Osaka embodies luxury, with a 'go big or go home' mentality, showcased through its grand architecture and service, making every stay a celebration.