Hospitality and Retail

Dubai Sports City Tower Hotel by Lang Hugger Rampp

The 5-star hotel is part of a new district, known as Dubai Sports City, which is currently being created in the southwest part of the Emirate, in the middle of the desert.

A dominant visual element is the innovative sunscreen structure that the Munich firm developed for this project. The sunscreen had to dramatically minimise the energy consumption required while not blocking light from the hotel rooms or obstructing views.

Despite the high visual transparency, the sunscreen design reduces energy consumption by approximately 60 % compared to a "normal" glass facade.  Neither the amount of daylight entering the rooms nor the view from the rooms is in any way impaired.

Yellow Treehouse Restaurant by Pacific Environments

The Yellow  Treehouse restaurant was the brainchild of an Auckland advertising agency for  one of their campaigns. But since its construction, the treehouse has taken on  a life of its own, capturing imaginations around the world.

The Yellow Treehouse restaurant was built on a  north-facing site near Warkworth, New Zealand. But this was no ordinary site –  it was 10 meters up a 40-meter redwood tree.

 “The  project is inextricably linked to its surroundings, so sustainability was at  the front of mind. We employed many environmentally friendly practices,  including short cuts of glue-laminated pine for the building’s geometric  exterior fins, which minimized waste, and we even employed an arborist to look  after the welfare of the tree,” says architect Peter Eising, leader of the  designer team at Pacific Environments. The company is a recognized pioneer in the  field of sustainable design and has nearly 50 years’ experience in residential  and commercial architecture.