This sustainable hotel also includes an event space, a bar, a green roof and 40 micro-apartments!

Studio Gang is known for being a super innovative company that produces some of the most unusual architectural designs and their latest concept is a mixed-use sustainable hotel called Populous! With solar panels, a green roof, and other carbon footprint-reducing features, Studio Gang aims to have the doors of this hotel open by 2023 which also seems like a feasible projection for all of us to resume traveling like non-pandemic times again.

Populous will be built in Denver, Colorado, and will measure 135,000 sq ft (roughly 12,500 sq m) with over 13 floors. While most of the interior layout will be dedicated to the hotel and its amenities, Studio Gang also plans to include 40 “micro-apartments” to stay aligned with its mixed-use functionality. It will also feature a public rooftop bar, a viewing point, a ballroom, and more food + drinks vendors – Populous sounds like the Venn Diagram intersection between a hotel, an event space, and an Airbnb tiny home. Hotel guests are immersed in the views of the nearby State Capitol, the Civic Center Park and the mountains beyond through the sweeping windows in their rooms. One really neat detail is that the windows of some rooms are designed to be occupiable so they are transformed into seating or desks that bring the outdoor scenic setting to the guest. The distinct shape of the windows also offers shade to the hotel and can channel rainwater to help keep the facade clean over time too using the “lids” that stretch outward.

The wedge-shaped building’s facade reminds me of a huge cheese grater and that is not something I mind but turns out it was the bark of local Aspen trees that inspired Studio Gang to make it that way. “At the building’s base, the windows grow up to 30 ft [9 m] in height to frame entrances and views into the lobby, restaurant, and amenity spaces. The texture and rhythm of its sculptural facade is strongly tied to the building’s hotel function. Each vertical scallop is the width of a hotel room, and its windows change in size in response to public and private spaces. The distinctive window shapes are informed by studying the characteristic patterns found on Aspen trees (Populus tremuloides). As the trees grow, they shed their lower branches, leaving behind dark, eye-shaped marks on the papery bark of their trunks,” says Studio Gang. Populous will be receiving the LEED Gold green building standard and will integrate features like roof-based solar panels to reduce its draw on the grid, a green roof, and an efficient heating/cooling system. I can’t wait to see more sustainable hotels that will help us make travel and tourism an environmentally-friendly experience powered by clean energy!

Designer: Studio Gang

UK honors ‘Tomb Raider’, ‘Worms’ and other classics with retro postage stamps

The UK's video game legacy is being honored with a new set of commemorative stamps from the Royal Mail. The collection, which will set you back £14.25 (nearly $19), features iconic designs from the likes of Wipeout, Lemmings, Micro Machines, Wo...

Peter Molyneux’s 22cans pitching Populous-esque project on Kickstarter, ‘Godus’

Peter Molyneux's 22cans pitching Populousesque project on Kickstarter, 'Godus'

Peter Molyneux, like so many of you, pines for the glory days of the studio he co-founded over 15 years ago, Bullfrog Productions. His new studio, 22cans, today announced launched its first initiative aimed at recreating those glory days, with "Godus" -- a Kickstarter project to "recreate the god game." Of course, Molyneux and Bullfrog were partially responsible for the original invention as well, with PC classic Populous. Like with Populous, you'll control a virtual world and its people, building up (or tearing down) their society as you see fit; it seems the "re-invention" bit comes in the form of multiplayer and mobile play. The nascent studio of game industry vets is hoping for a seven to nine month turnaround on the project, post-Kickstarter (should it pass the £450,000 goal, that is), and it's planned for launch on "PC and mobile devices."

In the (hilarious) video 22cans included in its Kickstarter, the company revealed that its first title cum social experiment, Curiosity, already has "about 2 million downloads almost," which we'd certainly call a success. The ever self-aware Molyneux also notes in the video that, "I don't want to promise anything, I just want to deliver the glory of the old days in the new format of today's world." Even when he's trying not to promise something, he just can't help himself, eh? See for yourself below the break.

Continue reading Peter Molyneux's 22cans pitching Populous-esque project on Kickstarter, 'Godus'

Filed under:

Comments

Via: Joystiq

Source: Kickstarter