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THE WATER HOUSE BOUTIQUE HOTEL AT SOUTH BUND DESIGN BY NERI & HU
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THE WATER HOUSE BOUTIQUE HOTEL AT SOUTH BUND DESIGN BY NERI & HU
Shangai – China
Located by the new Cool Docks development on the South Bund
District of Shangai, the Water house is a four – story, 19 room boutique hotel
built into an existing three story Japanese
Army headquarters building from the 1930’ s. The boutique hotel fronts the
Huangpu River and looks across at the gleaming Pudong skyline. The architectural concept behind Neri
& Hu renovation rests on a clear contrast of what is old and new. The
original concrete building has been restored while new additions built over the
exisiting structure were
made using Corten steel, reflecting the industrial past of this working dock by
the Huangpu River. Neri & Hu’ s structural addition, on the floor,
resonates with the industrial nature of the ships which pass through the river,
providing an analogous contextual link to both history and local culture.
Neri & Hu was also responsible for the design of the hotel’ s
interior, which is expressed throug both a blurring and inversion of the
interior and exterior, as well as between the public and private realms, creating a
disorienting yet refreshing spatial experience for the hotel guest who longs
for an unique five-star hospitality experience. The public spaces allow one to
peek into private rooms while the private spaces invite one to look out at the
public arenas, such as the large vertical room window above the reception desk
and the corridor windows overlooking the diningroom. These visual connections
of unexpected spaces not only bring an element of surprise, but also force the
hotel guest to confront the local Shanghai urban condition where visual
corridors and adjacencies in tight nong-tang’s define the unique spatial flavor
of the city.
You may visit to
see Neri & Hu Design Office's project of The Design Republic Commun Shangai from my blog archive to click below link.
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LYNDON NERI & ROSSANA HU
PHILOSOPHY
‘’ We don’t ask to be eternal beings.
We only ask that things do not lose all their meaning. ‘’
Antoine De Saint Exupery
Founded in 2004 by Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu, Neri & Hu Design
and Research Office is a multi-disciplinary architectural design practice based
in Shanghai, China with additional office in London, UK. Neri & Hu Works
internationally providing architecture, interior, master planning, graphic, and
product design services. Currently working on projects in many countries. The
diversity of the team reinforces a core vision for the practice ; to respond to
a global worldview incorparating overlapping design disciplines for a new
paradigm in architecture.
Neri & Hu’ s location is purposeful. With Shanghai considered a
new global frontier. Neri & Hu in the center of this contemporary chaos.
The city’s cultural, urban, and historic contexts function as a point of
departure for the architectural explorations involved in every project. Because
new sets of contemporary problems relating to buildings now extend beyond
traditional architecture, the practice challenges traditional boundaries of
architecture to include other complementary disciplines.
Neri & Hu believes strongly in research as a design tool as
each project bears its unique set of contextual issues. A critical probing info
the specificities of program, site function and history is essential to the
creation of rigorous design work. Based on research, Neri & Hu desires to
anchor its work on the dynamic interaction of experience, detail, material,
form, and light rather than conforming to a formulaic style. The ultimate
significance behind each project comes from how the built forms create meaning
through their physical representations.
Neri & Hu has been feature dwidely by the press around the world, including Architectural
Review, Wallpaper, Architectural Record, Frame, Mark, Abitare, Area, Diseno
Interior, Interior Design, I:D:, Travel+Leisure, Maru, Perspective Magazine,
Elle decor, Italia, Elle Decor China, China, Red Dot Year Book, Dezeen.com,
Archdaily.com, and countless more print and online media, as well aas TV
programs. Neri & HU and their design have been recognized by a number of
prestigious international design awards. UK Wallpaper announced the Founding
Partners Lyndon Neri and Rossano Hu as 2014 Designer of the year. They were
inducted into US Interior Design Hall of Fame in 2013. They were selected as
one of the I.D. Magazine I.D. Forty and one of the 40 under 40 prominent
designers shaping Hong Kong and Greater China respectively. Neri & Hu’s
design has been awarded by Inside Festival, AR House Awards, AR Awards for
Emerging Architecture, World Architecture Festival, D & AD Awards, Design
Vanguard, Interior Design Magazine Best of Year Awards and Gold Key Awards,
Chicago Athanaeum Good Design awards, ID Magazine Annual Design Review, Red Dot
Awards, Contract World Awards, The Great Indoors Awards, Design for Asia
Awards, Perspective Awards, Taiwan Interior Design Awards,
etc.
You may read Lyndon Neri & Rossana Hu’s entire biographies to
click below links.
http://enthepractice.neriandhu.com/content/rossana-hu
