DUOMO HOTEL — Italy

duoMo:

www.duomohotel.com

The duoMo hotel in Rimini, Italy, is the inaugural hotel project from the internationally renowned architect and designer, Ron Arad. This much-anticipated launch sees the use of alternative materials, bright colours and unusual shapes to produce a hotel that reverses design expectations to create an overall experience that is both futuristic and exciting.

On arrival at the hotel, guests pass through giant pinball flipper doors and walk towards the stunning stainless steel ring that forms the reception desk. To the left of reception is noMi bar & club (uppercase M is evidently Mandatory), where Arad has wrapped the original façade of the building in a bronze ‘skin’ that forms the ceiling of noMi and then drops to form the back wall of the bar in the form of a bench seat. Constructed by Marzorati Ronchetti, the bar itself is a large island construction with ‘fjörd’-like recesses for dining and drinking. Distorted reflections of the lighting and activity in the bar are created by the use of mirror polished stainless steel in the bar counter, DJ booth and floor-to-ceiling columns.

Italian interior fabricators, Molteni, have helped realise Arad’s dream of creating rooms that reflect his original approach to colour, form and texture. The hotel will comprise 34 guest rooms and nine ‘Dreaming’ suites, three of which have outdoor jacuzzis.

All rooms have wet-room ‘pods’ that are equipped with Alessi lavatories, bidets and illuminating showers. One wall of the wet-room (created entirely of Corian) looks into the bedroom through an oversized round window (which operates a special blind within the glass), while the other reveals a glass wardrobe. All rooms feature the latest technology advances and design features, seen in the bathroom walls covered in Corian, LCD screens and use of different coloured florescent and fibre optic lighting.