January 09, 2013

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
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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