Best Business Hotels 09

Best Business Hotels 09
Once again we join forces with Fortune magazine to select the 50 most stylish new, or newly revamped business hotels around the globe.
Our list has a strong emphasis on the US, Europe and China, while our ten selected judges, who will help us narrow down to ten deserving winners, come from every sector of the business world and are of course incredibly well travelled.

Vivanta by Taj__Bangalore




Uniquely designed with a facade that changes colour, texture and tone, this is a hotel not to be missed. Vivanta by Taj is ideally located for business travel, right at the main entrance to the International Tech Park, India’s first location that integrates office, retail, residential and recreational facilities.

The Standard__New York City





Soaring high above Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, André Balazs’s Standard hotel has a stark grey concrete exterior and eye-catching interiors. The eight different categories of rooms are all packed with colour, and come with magnificent views, wall-to-wall floor-to-ceiling windows and massive shower areas. More leisure facilities are set to open throughout spring.

A Tour of The Standard Hotel in New York
While we were in New York for ICFF, we were invited to go on a tour of the new Standard Hotel, which is located in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. For those who aren’t familiar with The Standard Hotel group, it’s a small collection of boutique hotels, each with its own unique modern design. The New York location is the latest addition to the group, which also includes locations in Hollywood, downtown Los Angeles, and Miami Beach.

Ouno Design review
We weren’t expecting the Standard’s sort of Japanese capsule hotel feel: the rooms are quite small, and though the storage at first seems sort of clever and modular, from a functional design point of view you get the feeling that function follows form, not vice versa...On the plus side, the friendly, incredibly mod concierges look like 70s airline pilots, and there are the most mesmerizing simultaneous film montages by Marco Brambilla in the elevators - imagine ever-changing pop animations of a Breughel painting.

The Standard Hotel 2009 Staff Calendar
There are only 500 copies of this 4th annual calendar available, traditionally only sent to say thank you to their most regular guests...



Sé__San Diego




This 23-storey steel and glass structure in the downtown financial district was designed by the Rockwell Group. As you enter via the 9,000-pound bronze pivot doors you are greeted by your ‘experience consultant’ rather than a check-in desk. The Sè’s grand penthouse is the largest suite on the West Coast.

Sè San Diego Offers West Coast's Largest Penthouse
If you have $20,000 a night to spend on a hotel room you can bunk at the newly renamed Sé San Diego (formerly The Setai) in their ultra-luxurious suite which is said to be the biggest penthouse on the West Coast. The Grand Penthouse spreads over three floors and has a large kitchen, six flat-screen televisions and a rooftop patio.

Luxury Hotel Opening in Peanut Butter-and-Jelly Times
Bob Kaplan, senior managing director of PKF Capital in Los Angeles and an expert in hospitality brokerage, said Sé is not alone in the luxury sector in opening in an economic downturn.
“I don't think you have any choice,” he said. “You have a lot of money at risk. Both equity and debt are already invested. You are not going to let it go dark just because you hit the market at the wrong time.” [...]

For a startup such as Sé, Jerry Morrison (hotel consultant) said, making it will be difficult because, unlike more established hotels, they can't count on an existing clientele. And because it's being advertised as high-end, he said, it can't afford to cut corners.
“If you are trying to hold yourself out as a five-star hotel, and you deliver the service of a three-star hotel, it's extremely difficult for that hotel to ever come back when the economy turns,” Morrison said. [...]

The Allerton Hotel__Chicago



The landmark Allerton Hotel was North Michigan Avenue’s first high-rise hotel. Originally built in the 1920s, the listed building boasts a beautiful Italian Renaissance-style exterior, while its interior has just received a $12m revamp. New touches include a sleek white, blue and grey décor, a second-floor hotel lobby and a hip restaurant, bar and lounge.



The George Hotel__Hamburg


The George is a new addition to Hamburg’s boutique hotel scene. Hotelier Kai Hollmann’s vision has combined the solid elegance of a London gentleman’s club and the clarity of Germanic design.


Quote
I think what is most important is the professionalism of a hotel, as well as the service for that matter. I don't really care if a waiter serves a plate or a bottle of wine from the right or the left side, but what is crucial for me is that he knows what he is serving and that the guest can tell that he loves what he does.
--Kai Hollmann (hotelier)

New York Times review
The hotel takes its name from the neighborhood of St. Georg, which has transformed itself in recent years from a popular spot for drug users to the kind of gay and lesbian-friendly neighborhood that charms with its boutiques and cafes. The banks of the nearby Aussenalster, an artificial lake formed by the Alster River, offer peaceful tree-lined paths for joggers, strollers and more sedentary readers alike.

The London West Hollywood__Los Angeles



With views over the Los Angeles and Beverly Hills skyline, the guest suites come with large living rooms, spacious bathrooms, ergonomic work desks, and coffee and dining tables. Outdoor spaces draw inspiration from traditional English garden landscaping, with white roses and an ivy-trellised front drive.

New York Times review
Hotel Pool Watch: June Opening for London West Hollywood
COMMENT
I literally live across the street from this hotel. I think the blue-gray and black color scheme is nicer to look at than the peach and green of the old (Wyndham) Bel Age. Once the rooftop pool is open again, guests will be treated to AMAZING views...My complaint as a neighbor is that their swanky new driveway is lined with fake plastic ivy. Tacky.

Vids
Gordon Ramsay at The London West Hollywood
Room 311

Park Hyatt__Beijing
Tian Pool


Pool

China Bar

Park Hyatt Beijing is ideally located right in the hub of Beijing’s Central Business District, directly opposite the China World Trade Centre and the new CCTV Tower. The luxury hotel has a wide range of plush rooms available, each fully equipped with all business conveniences and luxuries ranging from spa-inspired bathrooms, featuring Acca Kappa cosmetics, to espresso machines and the most incredible views over Beijing.

Park Hyatt gallery

The Opposite House__Beijing



Situated in the heart of Beijing’s entertainment and diplomatic district, Kengo Kuma’s immaculately designed The Opposite House is the capital’s new hot boutique hotel. The 99-room glass cube has been designed to meet the highest hospitality standards, with each of the large and light-filled bedrooms boasting luxury bedding, BaYanKaLa cosmetics and spa-inspired bathrooms. There are also five different restaurants and bar options on site. We just love their amazing penthouse which boasts a huge terrace.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith gallery
Kiwi Collection gallery
Flickr Set

Vids
24 Hrs Beijing
A-Trak's Hotel Guides

Mama Shelter__Paris







Reception

Breakfast Room

Superman bedside lamp

Bedside lamp

Located next to Père-Lachaise Cemetery, this new hotel offers great facilities to the business traveller. Guests are provided with international newspapers on request, and have access to a communal business centre and an enormous bar with private terraces for post-work drinks.

Founders
Created by the Trigano family (co-founders of Club Med) and French philosopher, Cyril Aouizerate, Mama Shelter was designed by Philippe Starck to offer an eclectic and electric ambiance thanks to its friendly, warm and casual common areas. [mamashelter.com]

Mama Shelter gallery



It's a Gem, But I've Got Reservations
Mama Shelter's tricksy Starck details will soon become exhausted, but what we have here is a bold restatement of what a hotel might be. Conventional ideas of service and opulence are irrelevant in our new world of communitarian, wired, borderless cool.

More interesting still, Trigano and Castro claim to have discovered a new travel frontier: extreme urban tourism. Mama Shelter is in a rough old part of Paris which Gilles Pudlowski, the best French restaurant critic, calls 'sinusoidal, colourful and motley'. Opposite the hotel, more creative re-use: the abandoned Charonne station has been turned into an electro-rock bar. Mama Shelter's terrace looks over the litter-strewn railway which used to feed it. This is hotel life as urban life reinvented. A fantasy in its way as fanciful as Club Med, but tougher. It just might work.

On the Edge of Paris, Hotelier Aims for an Urban Club Med
Every night, a flood of local artists mixes with international hotel guests, some of whom are high on style but low on cash. And given the reasonable room rates (single rooms start at $112), ordering another martini at Mama Shelter doesn't seem excessive in the slightest. Indeed, even the name of the hotel seems to say: We know it's bad out there, but you're with Mama . . . and Mama knows best.

New York Times review
The staff was friendly, and flexible: though I had booked a room at the lowest rate — which stipulated no refunds or changes — the hotel didn't hesitate to switch my dates after my father died.

Telegraph review
Starck’s style is a celebration of the quirky, but some of the brasher elements won’t appeal to everyone. Dark carpets scrawled with nonsensical phrases meet walls of exposed concrete. Fancy-dress masks hanging on lamps next to your pillow can either be delightfully eccentric or a little freaky, depending on your preference.

Welcome to Mama Shelter (vid)
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[pics: (wallpaper.com) (tripadvisor.com) (flickr.com) (la.curbed.com) (nytimes.com) (stylecrave.com) (splendia.com) (weheartstuff.com) (luxist.com) (images.google.com) (contemporist.com) (telegraph.co.uk) (venere.com)]

Shoes - Fall 09

The Accessories Wall: Fall 2009 Shoes
Specifically, let's talk Fall '09 shoes. Far more experienced fashion scholars than ourselves could probably spin out theories having to do with the economy or the Presidential election or any of a number of politico-socio-econo-cultural events as to why this is the case, but has anyone noticed how complicated shoes are getting? Where are the simple pumps, mules and slingbacks? Half of these shoes look like they require an engineering degree just to get them on. Walking in them is, of course, a secondary consideration. That's not actually anything new. Fashion has been dictating that woman walk slowly and carefully for centuries now. It's all about the design, not the practicality. Which is fine, we'd rather talk about how they look rather than the inevitable surgical interventions they will induce. By all means, point out that they're hard or nearly impossible to walk in, but that tends to make for a somewhat limited conversation. It's the look that inspires; not whether or not one can catch a bus in them. Because let's face it, no woman wearing any of the following shoes is going to be riding public transportation any time soon.

One thing that's notable about shoe fashion (if not fashion in general) in recent years is that there is no longer one type of heel or one type of sole or one shape of toe box that's in vogue. It's all up in the air. About the only thing you definitely won't see in the following examples is a low heel. It's all about height, baby.

Hermes

Chanel

Jean Paul Gaultier

Oscar de la Renta

Quote

The angry man will defeat himself in battle as well as in life.
--Samurai maxim

Christopher Conte

Black Widow__sold

Microbiotic.org
Christopher Conte was born in Bergen, Norway where he began drawing at age 3. At 6, shortly after moving to New York, he began taking college art classes at Hofstra University following a recommendation from his first grade teacher.

While still in high school he attended St. John’s University and in the eleventh grade received a scholarship to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Once at Pratt, he also studied human anatomy at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital through a program sponsored by Columbia University.

After earning a Bachelors Degree in Fine Art (BFA) from Pratt Institute, he entered the prosthetics field and began making artificial limbs for amputees in New York. Combining an abiding love for sculpture, medical science and biomechanics, the field enables Chris to apply his natural talents to help others in less fortunate situations, which he still does to this day.

All along, creating sculpture never escaped his deepest passion. In 2007, Chris began offering these unique pieces for sale to the public for the first time. His work has been recently covered in Wired, Popular Science, Make Magazine, and used by The Discovery Channel and MTV Networks.


Battery Powered Microbiotic Insect

Steam Insect__sold

Articulated Singer Insect__sold

Steel Widow__sold

Antiquities
Robots and androids aren’t the sole property of science fiction. Christopher Conte’s sculptures are more like old-fashioned studies rendered with today’s materials: anatomical forms on the verge of motion. You can picture them crawling around the next Star Trek movie, or under a jar in a medical curiosities museum.

How did you begin making these types of sculptures?
I began making the transition from painting and drawing to three-dimensional work during my time at Pratt. While still an illustration major, I started building robotic-inspired sculptures in my free time. I then began to use this method for my assignments. My instructors were very supportive of this switch and saw no reason why sculpture couldn’t serve to illustrate an idea. With that support I was building only sculptures by my senior year.

Do you find yourself more inspired by natural forms or the materials you work with?
They both play a huge role. Without question, natural forms like those found in insects, for example, usually start the ball rolling for me. From there I set out to hunt down parts and materials which lend themselves well to that aesthetic.

For all their technical aspects, your sculptures have an older feeling for me—more antiquarian and mechanical than techno or Chris Cunningham. Do you see yourself working in a certain school or approach?
While I’m no stranger to Chris Cunningham’s work (I find it quite wonderful), my approach comes mainly from a natural love for antiquities. Hunting places like flea markets and antique shops helped me develop a great appreciation for these artifacts while wanting to capture their appeal in my own work.

Was Thomas Edison much of an artist?
Not in a traditional sense, no. But if you look at Edison’s philosophy, his approach captured what drives creative thinking. Take for example this quote by Edison, “Restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of progress.” Or this, “If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astonish ourselves.” These are words artists like myself can live by.

Do all of your sculptures “work” in terms of operation?
Most of them do not actually move on their own. Many are articulated to some degree. What’s more important to me is expressing movement to the viewer without the physical need for movement.

What are you working on next?
I’ve been developing several insect prototypes which use programmable microprocessors to control their movement. This is something you might see more of in my work in the very near future.
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PLAYLIST
1. Smallest Mini Robot
Can 'turn on a dime and park on a nickel'.
2. Epson Mini Robots from Japan
Filmed at a robot expo in Yokohama
3. How to Make a Bristlebot
Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories
4. Create Teeny Tiny Solar Insect Robots
Make Magazine
5. Photopopper Photovore Solar Robot
OhGizmo!
6. Miniature Robots on Make: television
John Park builds some lively and inexpensive miniature robots.
7. Rotundus Groundbot
A robotic mobile platform that hosts cameras and sensors.

BotJunkie