nhow Amsterdam RAI Hotel, Amsterdam

About

The nhow RAI Hotel rises in the rapidly developing Zuidas business district, in the south of Amsterdam. The 91-meter building contains a mixed program with workspaces as well as entertainment. The main part is the hotel, which occupies nineteen of the building’s twenty-four floors and that, with 650 rooms in total, is the largest in the Benelux. The complex also includes the RAI Amsterdam convention and exhibition center, a restaurant, a bar, and a live television studio. The form, initially derived from the triangular constraints of the site, also pays tribute to the Het Signaal, the once prominent advertising totem which, overtaken by a multitude of office towers, has in recent times ceded its command of the surrounds. Making reference to its context and conceived as a beacon, the building consists of three stacked triangular volumes, with the middle section rotated 90 degrees. The large overhangs which emerge as a result, in addition to providing a series of sheltered roof terraces, create the impression of a building defying gravity. Aluminum mullions, alternately spaced depending on the aspect, ridge the facade. Each mullion is triangular in profile, giving the facades their lenticular quality – shimmering as it shifts on the horizon... [+]

Sources

• Arquitectura Viva