Architects / Designers: Teresa Sapey, parking lot; BB UK, landscape and public realm; John Pawson, lobby, conference rooms, mezzanine; Christian Liaigre, restaurant and breakfast room; Marc Newson, lobby bar and Floor 6; Zaha Hadid, Floor 1; Norman Foster, Floor 2; David Chipperfield, Floor 3; Plasma Studio, Floor 4; Victorio & Lucchino, Floor 5; Ron Arad, Floor 7; Kathryn Findlay and Jason Bruges, Floor 8; Richard Gluckman, Floor 9; Arata Isozaki, Floor 10; Estudio Mariscal, Floor 11; Jean Nouvel, Floor 12, penthouse, façade.
Lighting Designer: Isometrix Lighting + Design, London
Location: Madrid
Completion: 2005
Total Land Area: 340,000 square feet
Number of Rooms: 342
Cost: $5 million lighting, $96 million overall construction.
The Hotel Puerta America utilizes a system of sophisticated lighting design. Eleven designers and architects designed the hotel, and with this proportion of collaboration it is easy for the building to appear as several ideas, rather than one unified piece of architecture. To remedy this potential problem, the lighting designers utilized advanced lighting strategies to unify all of the differentiating ideas of the architects. The lighting designers paid close attention to detail within the spaces as well as the change in functions of the building and designed with indirect coves of lighting and by lighting within furniture elements that emerge from the walls. Some of the lighting they used were LED lights in corridors, four panel lighting controls in the guest rooms to allow for optimum control over the light levels and also the use of Hi-Macs, which helped create more fluid surfaces. Overall the lighting design not only illuminates hallways and rooms, it provides a strong unifying and visually interesting element for the hotel.
Architectural Lighting 