The new WADI RUM Desert Resort, designed by the Florida-based firm Oppenheim Architecture, takes advantage of the natural landscape to appreciate the surrounding landscape. Residences, rooms, and hotel amenities are built into the cliffs and inserted into the natural faults and fissures of the land.
WADI RUM Desert Resort technical information
- Architects: Oppenheim Architecture
- Principle in Charge: Chad Oppenheim
- Typology: Hospitality / Resort
- Location: Confidential
- Images: © Luxigon
To live in harmony with the natural world, we must learn how to re-engage the land. Earnest and timeless, the architecture is simultaneously powerful, yet comfortable; primitive, yet innovative; casual, yet elegant; raw, yet refined.
– Oppenheim Architecture
Destination SPA & Resort Renderings
Article by the Architects
Here, where desert sand meets desert stone, we see a singular opportunity to devise a new contract between man and nature. Reinterpreting the way we have dealt with the earth, our proposal establishes a new benchmark for design, quality and sustainability in the natural environment. We must learn how to re-engage the land to live in harmony with the natural world. Earnest and timeless, the architecture is simultaneously powerful, yet comfortable; primitive, yet innovative; casual, yet elegant;
raw, yet refined.
The built form merges silently with its wondrous setting, exploiting and enhancing the natural beauty of the site to establish luxury lodge accommodations – that are uniquely beautiful and luxurious. The resulting experience is sensual and sensitive, intentionally reduced to what is essential, establishing a ancient connection with the universe through simple, elemental forms, sincere materiality/detailing, and the use of bountiful natural resources both physical and ethereal. Nature accelerated, enhanced and embraced; nature nurtured.
The architecture we will humbly create within the realm of the Wadi is intended to miraculously and meticulously add another sound in a perfect symphony, another ingredient in a perfect dish. The conceptual point of departure has its roots in the tectonic and geological histories of the region. Through an engagement of the existing natural faults and fissures, the architecture is inserted in the landscape with nominal impact and primal elegance-synchronizing with the topography.
Works by Oppenheim Architecture
Notes
- Building Scale: 2 stories above ground, one story below ground, 3 stories carved into rock
- Materials: Local stone, sand mixture, clay mixture, glass, and metals (brass, silver, and copper). Recycled local woods. Goat hair for the tents. Structure – Natural Materials found on-site. Sandstone mud mix. Multiple varieties of stone are found on site, such as glass, brass, copper, and silver. Exterior Finish – Natural Sandstone mud mix
