Design showcase: top five projects with materials taken to the next level

This week’s collaboration with TOPHOTELDESIGN showcases the top five hotel developments utilising materials in the most creative and inspirational ways.
This week we’re taking a look into projects where designers successfully expressed materials’ maximum capabilities, taking into consideration complexity, creativity, innovation and taste.
Exploring sophisticated limits
Taste is indeed subjective, but the trained eye can tell whether or not a designer had a specific aesthetic in mind and if their taste matched their goals.
These five projects are exceptional in every way, taking commonly used materials and exploring their limits without losing sophistication.
A meticulously designed bamboo lodge, as indicated by its name, takes bamboo to places we’ve never seen before, creating intricate delicate patterns that transform the usual straight orthogonal lines into a curved space where walls and ceiling are continuous.
Hotel Terrestre uses bricks from the inside out, creating a facade that both follows the original lines of typical brick proportions while elevating the casual material into a futuristic and brutalist unique facade.
While Hotel Bohinj uses multiple long wood cuts with slanted edges to create artistic masterpieces that emerge from the ceiling while maintaining that same wooden texture throughout the whole hotel. Libertine Lindenberg uses bespoke ceramics designed by the interior designers themselves to produce geometric topographies that play with scale and light in wonderfully textured ways.
Elsewhere, Jam Hotel takes concrete and takes it from its usual most-used material form and elevates it to tremendous sculptural installations that integrate into the basic foundation of the building.
Click on the images below and explore the projects in further detail.
A Meticulously Designed Bamboo Lodge
Yibin, China
by QAD
Hotel Terrestre
Puerto Escondido, Mexico
by Taller de Arquitectura – TAX
Hotel Bohinj
Bohinj, Slovenia
by OFIS arhitekti
Image by © Žiga Intihar
Libertine Lindenberg
Frankfurt, Germany
by Studio ABERJA
JAM Hotel
Brussels, Belgium
by Lionel Jadot
Image by © Oana Crainic
Related Articles
Virgin Hotels previews second UK site
Imagery courtesy of Virgin Hotels. Virgin Hotels has given a sneak peek at its upcoming Glasgow development ahead of its opening in December this year. Virgin Hotels Glasgow is the second site for the brand in the UK and will feature 240 Chambers spanning across 15...
Six Senses to open highly anticipated Swiss resort this December
Imagery © Six Senses. Six Senses Crans-Montana is on track for making its debut, just in time for the 2022-23 winter season, at the end of the year. The year-round slope-side property promises to combine vitality, serenity and adventure in a space featuring luxury...
Design concept: Shiroiya Hotel
Imagery © Katsumasa Tanaka. This week’s TOPHOTELDESIGN exclusive places the focus on industrial-chic Shiroiya Hotel featuring a man-made grassy hill. The 2020-completed hotel in Japan is the result of a collaborative design effort between several architecture and...
Boutique brand rebuilds historic houses for Japanese luxury resort
Imagery courtesy of The Pavilions Hotels & Resorts. The Pavilions Hotels & Resorts is relocating 19th century traditional kominka Japanese houses for a new luxury resort in Hokkaido. The Pavilions Niseko Resort will launch in Q4 2024, and the build includes...
Design showcase: Top 5 corridor designs
This week’s collaboration with TOPHOTELDESIGN highlights the hotel hallways which make moving from one area to the next a fascinating exploration. We have chosen five properties which focus on the journey as well as the destination. These corridors not only lead to...
Roost moves further into the American south
Imagery courtesy of Morris Adjmi Architects. Hot on the heels of an opening in Tampa, Florida, the Roost aparthotel brand is heading to neighbouring US state South Carolina with a development scheduled to launch in early 2024. Roost Charleston is intended to be a...