A script developed between SO–IL and Andrew Witt of Certain Measures produces double curved, an- ti-clastic shells, based on variable boundary frames. Pavilion-like canopies morph to a variety of plan and section inputs. 

The hotel by Smiljan Radic, his first full-scale architectural project in Europe, will be the catalyst of a collection of architectural heritage unparalleled in the world. Construction of the hotel is scheduled to begin in 2026 for its completion and opening in 2028.

Radic is renowned for an avant-garde architectural practice which draws from a strong relationship with the territory. The idea for its form originated in a wooden board with pegs that sculptor Marcela Correa, an ongoing collaborator of Radic, was using. Similarly, the project is based on a simple concrete slab suspended on posts, placed in the natural landscape and which to minimise its impact on the terrain.

 

Rethinking fundamental notions of architecture, the hotel marks an urban area, isolating it but without separating it from the natural environment. In the architect’s words, the project creates borders rather than frontiers, generating a hybrid of natural and synthetic organisations that are clearly recognisable.

 

The hotel envisages the construction of 25 double rooms offering complete immersion, designed as cylinders and located alongside the concrete platform. The central core will be a cylinder and an adjoining pavilion incorporating the reception and restaurant and communicating with the rooms via walkways.

 

The project envisages the construction of 3,300 m2 of covered areas for guests and services and 7,000 m2 including the concrete slab and outdoor areas such as an open-air cinema.

 

The hotel will be the central hub of the community and a cultural and tourism catalyst for the region, with a programme of cultural and leisure activities including an outdoor cinema, wine and food activities, nature activities and visits to the existing outdoor sculpture trail Solo Sculpture Trail, among many others.

 

Ongoing collaborators are involved in the project, such as landscape architect Bas Smets in the development of the landscaping project, developed with native species.

 

The hotel will have a positive impact on the local community, generating a significant economic investment in the region throughout the construction phase, for which Solo Houses will continue to work with local builders and suppliers. In addition, Smiljan Radic works in collaboration with Spanish architects Miquel Mariné, César Rueda and Beatriz Borque for the project.

 

Following the example of the project’s two existing houses, which are energy self-sufficient, the project will incorporate energy efficiency measures, including the installation of solar panels and sustainable air conditioning systems, and a land conservation approach throughout.

The architects Simona Malvezzi, Wilfried Kuehnand Johannes Kuehn founded Kuehn Malvezzi in Berlin in 2001.

Public spaces and exhibitions are the main focus of their work as architects, designers and curators. They transform architecture into a medium of expression in itself. Their work brings together the forms and lines of their architectural installations with collections of contemporary art and historical monuments. Their proposals raise issues of questioning cultural heritage. Kuehn Malvezzi thinks architecture as a reflection of the perpetual questioning of our society, the meaning that we give to the constructions of humankind in the same way that a work of art challenges us.

Among their projects, they realized the architectural design for Documenta 11, the Flick Collection in the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin as well as the Julia Stoschek Collection in Dusseldorf. The firm has designed the reorganization of a number of contemporary and historical art collections and dealt as well with sensitive preservation issues for listed buildings such as the Belvedere in Vienna, the Liebieghaus in Frankfurt, the Berggruen Collection in Berlin as well as the Kunstgewerbemuseum, also in Berlin.

Kuehn Malvezzi won the international competition for the interreligious House of One in the historic foundations of Berlin’s earliest churches at Petriplatz in 2012 and for the Insectarium in Montreal in 2014. The architects are currently working in the new presentation of the collections of the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Baunschweig and a new venue for the Moderne Galerie at the Saarlandmuseum. A number of nuildings for private clients have been completed in recent years, including both residential and commercial projects.

When it won the Humboldt-Forum contest special prize in Berlin, Kuehn Malvezzi’s attracted a great deal of attention. Their Critical Approach to Reconstruction in this Design is also awarded with the 2009 German Critics’ Prize in the Architecture Category. They were nominated for the international Mies van der Rohe Award for the Julia Stoschek Collection in 2009 and for the Joseph Pschorr Haus in 2015. Their projects have been shown in international solo and group exhibitions, including the 10th, 13th and 14th Biennial Architecture in Venice and Manifesta 7 in Trento. Kuehn Malvezzi participated in the 1st Chicago Architecture Biennial in 2015.

Since the founding of Johnston Marklee in 1998 by Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee, the diversity of the duo’s professional projects has been characterized by a continuous line of approach: the conceptual approach seeking to explore possible relationships between design and building technology in order to produce unique architectural works. Indeed, the way Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee approach projects that vary in size and scale – from blueprints to construction, to temporary installations – distils the inherent complexity of each project in order to transform it into a set of coherent solutions. Johnston Marklee has strong professional record where residential, commercial and institutional environments coexist together with exhibition spaces, with a special interest in the arts. While maintaining its deep commitment to the history of architecture and the ongoing evolution of the discipline, Johnston Marklee know how to take advantage of an extensive network of collaborators in related fields, seeking the expertise of contemporary artists, graphic designers and writers to expand the scope of their design work in the research phase. Johnston Marklee agrees on the collaborative model in which, the distinguished expertise of a discipline related to another discipline increases in intensity rather than vice versa, thus maintaining permeable boundaries that lead to better results.

 

Ongoing projects include a new campus of workshops for UCLA’s Faculty of Arts in Culver City, California; the Grand Traia-no Art Complex of the DEPART Foundation in Grottaferrata, Italy; Vault House, a private beach resort in Oxnard, California; and Chile House / META, a center of art and cultural action in Penco, for the Chilean government. The agency has won several distinction awards, including the AIA California Council Honor Awards and the American Architecture Award, and Architectural’s Emerging Architecture Award Review.

Born in 1965 in Mumbai (India). Lives and works in Mumbai.

 

Founded by Bijoy Jain, Studio Mumbai works with a human infrastructure of skilled craftsmen, technicians and industrial designers who design and build the artworks on their own. The group shares an environment developed from an iterative process, where ideas are examined through large scale models, material studies, sketches and drawings. The projects are developed taking into account the site and a practice that emerges from traditional skills, local building techniques, materials from limited resources.

 

Bijoy Jain graduated from the University of Washington in St. Louis in Architecture in 1990. He worked in Los Angeles and London between 1989 and 1995, then returned to India to create his architect studio in 1995. Studio Mumbai’s work has been presented at the 12th edition of La Biennale di Venezia and at the Victoria & Albert Museum. It has been awarded many prizes, including being a finalist in the Global Sustainability Architecture Award for the 11th edition of the Aga Prize in 2010. Studio Mumbai has also been the winner of the seventh edition of the Spirit of Nature Award for Architecture in the Wood in Finland and of the third edition of BSI Swiss Architecture Award in 2012. More recently, it was awarded the Great Gold Medal of the Academy of Architecture in Paris in 2014. Moreover, the University of Hasselt in Belgium awarded Bijoy Jain an honorary doctorate in 2014. He taught in numerous universities such as in Copenhagen in 2012, at Yale University for the autumn semester in 2013 and spring semester at Mendrisio in 2014 and 2015.

In the Center of the Infinite.

On the side of the mountain, in the centre of the telluric setting, the ultimate shelter offers itself to us as the promise of a new world.

Protecting from the elements but facing the surrounding nature, this shell with its wide openings frames the landscape in many ways to better appreciate its diversity.

As in the centre of the “Big Bang”, the house seems both to suck and to reflect the light back into its heart. The floors place the body in weightlessness where traditional spatial landmarks (top and bottom, right and left) have disappeared.

As if from elsewhere, the house invites its occupants to new spatial experiences between infinitely large and infinitely small.

 

Didier Fiúza Faustino is an architect and artist working on the relationship between body and space.

 

He started his own practice at the crossroad of art and architecture just after graduating in architecture in 1995.

 

He has been developing since then a multi-faceted approach, ranging from installation to experimentation, from visual art to the creation of multi-sensorial spaces, mobile architecture and buildings.

 

After teaching six years at the AA School in London (Diploma Unit 2) and being two years editor in chief of the French architecture and design magazine CREE in 2015 and 2016, Didier Faustino is currently fully dedicating his time on architecture projects (Mexico, Costa Rica, Belgium, Portugal and France) and art installation and exhibitions (Vienna, Geneva, Lisbon, Los Angeles)