The world’s first guitar-shaped hotel, with a price tag estimated at $1.5 billion, opened in Hollywood, Fla., late last month.
The 450-ft-tall 34-story Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, sitting on 34 acres, includes 638 music-themed guest rooms and suites, a 12,000-sf rooftop bar, 14 on-site restaurants, more than 20 shops, a lagoon called Bora Bora, and a 6,556-seat, 225,000-sf multipurpose theater called Hard Rock Live, designed by the Canadian firm Scéno Plus, that alone cost an estimated $125 million. (A concert by the rock group Maroon 5 opened this venue on October 25.)
Klai Juba Wald Architecture & Interiors designed the hotel, Giovanetti Shulman Associates and Arup were engineers on this project, and Suffolk Construction the GC. The hotel/casino is owned through Hard Rock International by the Seminole Tribe of Florida.
The building’s façade is outfitted with 2.3 million LEDs, video mapping and lasers, capable of creating a multitude of visual effects and presentations. Boston-based custom fabricator Design Communications LTD (DCL) managed, directed, engineered, and installed the LEDs and power systems provided by SACO, with generative and sound-reactive content created by Float4 using Realmotion 4 Karat Gold Series servers. SmartMonkeys provided an integrated scheduling and automation control platform called ISAAC.
Float4 created generative and sound-reactive content for the hotel's exterior lighting effects using Realmotion servers.
The facade has five core elements that can each be used for specific effects:
•The Front & Back are the main sections on which dynamic content can be video mapped.
•The Outline delineates the edges of the guitar shape, and content plays with this aspect by hiding and revealing the guitar’s contours.
•The Sides enhance the illusion of depth for visual effects
•The Strings, which utilize lasers instead of LEDs, are used to show vertical motion and effects such as fountains, chord strums and string plucks.
•The Spandrel Glass section is ideal for expanding content from the face and body to create the illusion of another level of content.
Videos of the hotel can be viewed here and here.
James Allen, chairman of Hard Rock International, expects the new hotel/casino to attract between 15,000 and 20,000 visitors a day, and up to 45,000 on Saturdays. The project created 2,400 construction jobs, and the facility will employ around 4,000 people.
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
And the world's tallest building is…
At more than 2,600 feet high, the Burj Dubai (right) can still lay claim to the title of world's tallest building—although like all other super-tall buildings, its exact height will have to be recalculated now that the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) announced a change to its height criteria.
| Aug 11, 2010
Spa resort in harmony with mountain setting
The Sparkling Hill Resort and Wellness Hotel in Vernon, B.C., looks as if it was chiseled out of bedrock and jutting from the mountainside. Designed by the Victoria, B.C., office of Cannon Design, the 240,000-sf resort has 152 guest rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows and spa-like bathrooms, as well as a signature 20,000-sf whole-body wellness spa with treatment rooms designed to feel like they...
| Aug 11, 2010
Triangular tower targets travelers
Chicago-based Goettsch Partners is designing a new mixed-use high-rise for the Chinese city of Dalian, located on the Yellow Sea coast. Developed by Hong Kong-based China Resources Land Limited, the tower will have almost 1.1 million sf, which includes a 377-room Grand Hyatt hotel, 84 apartments, three restaurants, banquet space, and a spa and fitness center.
| Aug 11, 2010
Expanding retail complex is LEED pre-certified
The Promenade at Coconut Creek in Broward County, Fla., a live-work-play shopping and lifestyle center, is being expanded by 105,000 sf. When phase II of the 335,000-sf project is complete, the facility will house 75 retailers, restaurants, and related services, making it one of the largest mixed-use projects in northern Broward County.
| Aug 11, 2010
CityCenter projects get LEED Gold
MGM Mirage and Infinity World Development have received LEED Gold certification for the first three CityCenter projects: the ARIA Resort hotel tower, ARIA Resort convention center and theater, and the Vdara Hotel (above). The CityCenter developers anticipate Gold or Silver LEED certification for the project's remaining developments, which include a Mandarin Oriental hotel, a 500,000-sf retail a...
| Aug 11, 2010
Philadelphia cancer center seeks LEED certification
The New York office of Thornton Tomasetti provided structural engineering services for the Ruth and Raymond Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine in Philadelphia, a $232 million medical research center and advanced treatment center for cancer and cardiovascular disease. Designed by a joint venture of Perkins Eastman Architects and Rafael Vinõly Architects, the 340,000-sf facility will hous...
| Aug 11, 2010
High-level NICU opens in Washington, D.C.
Design to the highest distinction available by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the new Level IIIC neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Children's National Medical Center in Washington D.C., is equipped to care for the sickest premature babies, including those that require open-heart surgery. The 54-bed facility, designed by Karlsberger with KLMK Group as space planner, is four times large...
| Aug 11, 2010
RMJM unveils design details for $1B green development in Turkey
RMJM has unveiled the design for the $1 billion Varyap Meridian development it is master planning in Istanbul, Turkey's Atasehir district, a new residential and business district. Set on a highly visible site that features panoramic views stretching from the Bosporus Strait in the west to the Sea of Marmara to the south, the 372,000-square-meter development includes a 60-story tower, 1,500 resi...
| Aug 11, 2010
San Bernardino health center doubles in size
Temecula, Calif.-based EDGE was awarded the contract for California State University San Bernardino's health center renovation and expansion. The two-phase, $4 million project was designed by RSK Associates, San Francisco, and includes an 11,000-sf, tilt-up concrete expansion—which doubles the size of the facility—and site and infrastructure work.
| Aug 11, 2010
'Feebate' program to reward green buildings in Portland, Ore.
Officials in Portland, Ore., have proposed a green building incentive program that would be the first of its kind in the U.S. Under the program, new commercial buildings, 20,000 sf or larger, that meet Oregon's state building code would be assessed a fee by the city of up to $3.46/sf. The fee would be waived for buildings that achieve LEED Silver certification from the U.
