You may have already seen online various images showing one of the latest projects by Zaha Hadid Architects - the City of Dreams Hotel Tower in Cotai, Macau.
Designed by Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher, the building was commissioned by Melco Crown Entertainment, a developer and owner of casino gaming and entertainment resort facilities in Asia.
By the time they will finish building the structure in 2017, the tower will have forty floors, 150,000 square metres, and 780 guestrooms, plus suits and sky villas, event facilities, restaurants, a spa and sky pool.
Yet these numbers and details pointing towards hyper luxury are definitely not the most interesting elements of this building.
From a merely architectural point of view, the City of Dreams tower results attractive for its rectangular outline that forms a monolithic block, pierced by a series of voids that give the solid structure the impression of being made in a liquid or soft moldable material.
This dichotomy between rigidity/stability and illusionary moldable variation proves intriguing, drawing attention to the façade as well, with its external exoskeleton that gives dynamism to the structure thanks to an irregular network based on digitally manipulated and extruded surfaces and geometries.
Contrasts between rigid and soft materials have often been used in fashion, but it would be intriguing to take further (maybe aided also by new digital means and tools...) a research into moldable and variable surfaces and textiles.
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