London Hotel to be built underground
To build on the green belts surrounding London you have to present a proposal of significantly high design merit. The visible impact should be kept to a minimum so as not to detract from the areas’ natural beauty. In a somewhat novel approach to these design stipulations, Reardonsmith Architects have created a design that places a 200 room hotel underneath the ground.
“Our concept integrates hotel, spa, and golf facilities into a single architecturally exciting and organic composition below and above ground. The design fulfills the requirements of the brief for a bespoke five star hotel while returning hard standing to the Green Belt and improving the physical layout and visual attraction of the entire site. It represents a commercially viable solution to developing in the Green Belt and is, we believe, a world-first”, Matthew Guy, Reardonsmith project designer.
This is certainly a novel approach to the challenges of building in an area of such importance for a city such as London, and although it provides adequate responses to many of the challenges posed, it is unclear if any project to build on the green belt would ever be allowed. Despite not impacting too greatly on the visual appearance of the area, there would be a structure, and all the additional aspects that need to be catered for, like transport, waste management and energy. Time, in this case, will tell.
via: [Inhabitat]
Reardonsmith Architects
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Anonymous
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Jeremiah
