W Hotel

  • Dubai, United Arab Emirates
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The hotel is conceived as an extension of the corniche promenade. Like a dock, it is set into, and becomes a part of, Dubai creek according to a principle of horizontal platforms in relationship with the water. This building appears as a series of wooden platforms that deploying themselves vertically from the promenade deck up through the hotel room floors to the roof.

 

The building can be read as a great sailing ship with its bridges and decks, wrapped on the outside in layers of vegetation which extend the surrounding park up onto the building.

The principal hotel wing reaches out over the water, creating a protected space sheltered from the hot desert wind and allowing outdoor activities to develop around the quayside- public promenade, pontoons, restaurants, bars – organized around water and boats.

The architectural vocabulary is linked to boats, sails, and water, and carries an idea of luxury and preciousness that pervades the building inside and out, blurring the line between interior and exterior.

 

 

Jean Nouvel