Archinect - News

Kengo Kuma-designed Ace Hotel Kyoto will open this spring

2020-01-28T14:14:00-05:00

Ace Hotel Kyoto is getting ready to welcome its first guests, and just in time for the high-travel season for the Tokyo Olympic Games this summer. The boutique hotel chain collaborated with Kengo Kuma and Commune Design for the 213-room hotel, which is part new-build and part historic structure that formerly housed the Kyoto Central Telephone Company, which was originally designed by iconic modern architect Tetsuro Yoshida in the 1920s. First announced in 2018, Ace Hotel Kyoto marks the company's first location in Asia.

Guest room seating area. Photo: Stephen Kent Johnson.

Photo: Stephen Kent Johnson.

Inspired by the ancient capital's abundance of nature, art, attention to craft, and profound history, the hotel will feature a lobby, multiple garden courtyards, a gallery, event spaces, collaborations with local artists, a cafe, and three standalone restaurants. Kengo Kuma updated the historic building with a wooden grid system and louvers and meshes that gently filter in natural light ...

Ace Hotel will open its first Japanese location with a Kengo Kuma design

2018-04-09T14:13:00-04:00

The boutique hospitality chain, Ace Hotel has announced it will open its first-ever Japanese outpost next year with a Kengo Kuma designed building in Kyoto. According to the company's president, Brad Wilson, "it’s been [a] long-standing dream to put down roots in Japan." "We feel incredibly humbled and grateful to...make our dreams a reality, creating a space that honors the beauty and history of Kyoto while fostering global connection and cultural innovation" he said.

Known for taking over cool spaces, the hipster hotel chain will be moving into Tetsuro Yoshida’s 1920 Kyoto Central Telephone Officebuilding. Kuma, who is also responsible for Tokyo’s impending Olympic Stadium, will give the building a modern update with a wooden grid system and fine louvers and meshes that gently filter light and wind. The scheme will also feature various gardens which have existed since the Heian period.

According to the hotel, the surrounding neighborhood sits on the former grounds of the imperial ...

+POOL installation to open at the Ace Hotel in NY next month

2015-01-28T19:38:00-05:00

Since Archinect first mentioned the Family and PlayLab's +POOL in 2011, the initiative has made significant progress toward realizing the world's first water-filtering, floating pool in New York.

After two wildly successful Kickstarter campaigns in 2011 and 2013 along with international acclaim, the non-profit support group Friends of +POOL teamed up with the Ace Hotel in New York to present a free public art installation,“Doing Something Big When No One Asks You To Do Something Big.”

Opening on February 5 at the Ace Hotel Gallery, the interactive installation will visually depict the four years of research and development that led to the creation of the +POOL. The installation will feature floor-to-ceiling wall drawings of the +POOL that explain its design process and reveal its latest discoveries and anecdotes.

All are welcome to the opening reception hosted by +POOL’s founders and board members on February 5 from 7-9 p.m. The exhibition will be open 24/7 until March 1.

Learn more...

Roman & Williams On The Design Legacy Of Ace Hotel Cofounder Alex Calderwood

2013-11-20T11:41:00-05:00

Last week Alex Calderwood, cofounder and creative force behind the Ace Hotel, was found dead. He was 47. The first Ace Hotel opened in Seattle in 1999, under Calderwood's direction... When Calderwood and his team took the company east, to New York, Calderwood brought his friends, design duo Roman & Williams, on board to design the space. Here, Robin Standefer of Roman & Williams remembers Calderwood's design legacy.