Zaha Hadid Architects tops out on 'Hollywood-inspired' resort complex in Macau

2021-11-23T12:03:00-05:00

Zaha Hadid Architects has shared an update about its latest venture in the Chinese entertainment capital of Macau. The multibillion-dollar project has topped out on Phase 2 of its Hollywood-themed twin-tower resort called Studio City. The resort was built to expand developer Melco Resorts & Entertainment’s operation in the city’s burgeoning Cotai Strip.

Renderings courtesy mir/Zaha Hadid Architects

The facades of each building are defined by three layers of gradated glass with external shade fins that ensure an energy-efficient envelope. Featuring more than 250,000 square meters (2.7 million square feet) of total floor area, the 900-room development is home to a six-screen movie theater, retail and gaming areas, and one of Asia’s largest water outdoor parks. The studio has previously worked with Melco to complete a nearby luxury hotel complex called Morpheus in 2018.

Renderings courtesy mir/Zaha Hadid Architects

“Studio City Phase 2 reaffirms our ongoing commitment to the city and c...

Donald Trump, usher of America's postindustrial urban blight

2016-08-05T18:10:00-04:00

Casinos like the Taj Mahal have destroyed Atlantic City’s public space. Gambling’s arrival replaced the outward-looking hotels, shops, and promenades of the mid-century boardwalk with clusters of dark, labyrinthine resorts, set back from the street and enclosed behind monitored security gates. [...] Atlantic City’s model of a plush, self-contained casino abutting a ruined neighborhood has become a synecdoche for the last forty years of American urban development.

To dissect the urban effects of Trump's Atlantic City casino, Sam Wetherall traces the city's history as a booming resort town through the early 20th century, and into its current economic crisis:

In 2014 alone, casino closures cost Atlantic City more than ten thousand jobs, a staggering figure for a city with a population under forty thousand. Atlantic City’s unemployment rate sits at almost 14 percent, and it suffers from the highest home foreclosure rates in the country.

Donald Trump may herald a radical new force in American politics, but his background illuminates trends that have been unfolding in American cities for more than fifty years. As deindustrialization hollowed out cities’ economies, many have responded by wrapping their public spaces in glittering property developments and legalizing gambling to survive.

Atlantic City provides a potent, and foreboding, example of the kind of urbanity that Trump's business agenda has wrought:

While the media has dissected the failures of...

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Zaha Hadid Architects tops out on 'Hollywood-inspired' resort complex in Macau

Donald Trump, usher of America's postindustrial urban blight