Atari changed the game (no pun intended) when it launched Pong in the ’70s, kickstarting the video game industry as we know it. (Last year, video game profits were estimated to hit a record worth of $152 billion.) Now Atari is continuing its expansion in the gaming universe by launching its own chain of hotels.
Over the next few years, the American gaming company will construct a series of themed hotels in cities including Phoenix, Denver, San Francisco, Austin, and Las Vegas. While the concept is still in fairly early stages, the hotels are poised to be the ultimate gaming experience. CNN reports that some rooms may be equipped with as many as 10 (!) gaming consoles and a press release states that they’ll also include “the latest in VR and AR (Virtual and Augmented Reality).” Woah.
Construction on the first hotel is expected to start later this fall in Phoenix with plans to open by 2022. While the whole idea of staying in an AI-resort where you don’t know what’s even real, like you’re trapped in some Black Mirror episode based on The Shining frankly sounds terrifying, only one question remains: Are you game?
Amsterdam-based interior designer Saar Zafrir has designed hotels all over Europe from Provocateur Berlin to Brown Beach House Croatia. It’s always in boutique hotels that traveler feels even more comfortable than at home with their focus on meticulous detail. In fact, it is always the bedroom that we’d love to replicate at home but with clutter and the regular human obsession with sentimental items, our bedrooms are often not the clean haven of dreams. We spoke with the designer to learn more about creating a magical hotel setting in our own homes.
How has your design sense changed working with boutique hotels in Europe?
Boutique Hotels require a great deal of attention to detail, from the overall concept to the interior design, material selection, and furniture design. In order to make them unique, creativity becomes the main player. Normally speaking, a boutique hotel has no branded guidelines/standards as a starting base and therefore the designer needs to get deeply involved in the details in order to create a new essence/feeling/vibe.
What are some of the most important elements of interior design in a hotel? What do people pay attention to most and don’t even realize that they do so?
The three most important elements in any guest room are the lighting, bathroom, and bed. Lighting is one of the most crucial, yet overlooked elements. The light in one’s bedroom must be strong and encompass the entire space. I recommend adding a light dimmer to adjust a bedroom to serve various functions from morning to night and to allow a warm and soft atmosphere when needed. Bathroom lighting is also very important and needs to be just right to allow guests to get ready, check out their outfit and handle all their grooming needs. Proper and strong water pressure in the shower needs to be ensured as well. In all my design projects, it’s important for me to create a bed so comfortable that the hotel guests will find it very difficult to leave. I usually use Egyptian cotton sheets, a mattress topper is a must and four extremely cosy pillows.
What kind of elements are people afraid to include in their homes but appreciate in hotels?
Home is an everyday location, which is why you shouldn’t go with extreme design. For example, your home shouldn’t be too ‘dark’ / too sexy / too futuristic and so on and forth. Home should be warm, comfortable and practical. Hotels, on the other hand, can be less practical and more daring. In the end, as a guest, you’ll only be spending a few days in it.
Hotel rooms are usually very clean-cut, uncluttered. Is this something that we should try to include in our own homes as well?
While I believe de-cluttering to be beneficial, a home can have a bit more expression and clutter than a hotel room. While a hotel’s design is meant to welcome every type of guest, you can really personalize your home and bedroom to be your own haven. Make your bed every morning before leaving, keep your nightstand clean-cut and incorporate the design elements I mentioned above (lighting and bedding).
Many of your designs included velvet elements. What other interior design trends have you recently encountered?
Velvet is timeless – I wouldn’t necessarily categorize it as a trend. I love velvet because it’s a very warm fabric. Recently, I have really enjoyed using white/off-white as a recurrent color and mixing it with small details such as books, pillows, and art with warmer colors that bring a room to life and create a cozy feeling.
Finally, what are three things people can do to bring hotel elements into their home?
Adding small decorative details can really make the difference and bring a home to life. For example, I would suggest investing in a great coffee table, curating a selection of books that interest you, adding rugs, decorative pillows to furniture and so forth.
When living in New York City or London becomes too grey, the Maldives unimposingly offers blue lagoons, white-sand beaches, and perfect weather. It’s to no surprise that The Standard‘s newest destination is on the Pacific island range, with a private resort on an Huruvalhi Island opening this fall. The 115-villa feature amidst the eternal blue is a contemporary dream for self-care, pure fulfillment, and sunshine.
Located a swift 35-minutes from Velena International Aiport, the island is accessible by a seaplane or a speedboat. With both overwater villas and beach villas, the amenities are stacked for even the most demanding patron. The resort offers a number of blissful activities, including paddleboarding, yoga facilities, as well are snorkeling in the house reef close to the island. There’s also access to the signature The Standard Spa and when hunger strikes, plenty of fresh organic dining options. And for days when getting out of bed doesn’t seem like an option, almost everything can be brought to you en-suite.
During Fashion Week mayhem, Paris turns into a city of crowded terrasse‘s, Instagrammers, and unnecessary traffic jams. While the most fashionable A-listers will rush to L’Avenue for dinner and the tourists straight to the Moulin Rouge, Paris’ best secrets hide behind gates, through courtyards, without any signs, but offering the loveliest escapes that are indeed so paradoxically Parisian. These places plunge us into rêverie and remind us that Paris is, indeed, always a good idea.
Photo: Courtesy of Hôtel National Des Arts et Métiers
We’ve heard about this place for a year before it was finished and as soon as it’s doors opened, Hôtel National became one of the chicest locations in Paris towards the end of 2017. Rightly so, the Haussmannian façade hides a feat of modern architecture, clean lines, green accent points, and a great hiding place away from the city, in its center. Rumor has it, the rooftop offers one of the best views of Sacré-Coeur.
We hate to say it, but unfortunately cafe en terrasse is usually quite watered down-plain bad in Paris. Fragments, just steps away in the Marais away from Place des Vosges, seems like NYC-transplant with a French accent. Here you will find the best cappuccino in the entire city, and pretty good avocado toast too! Just ask them to put it on a croissant.
Café Saint-Régis is in the busier part of town on Île Saint-Louis facing the back of Notre-Dame. If you’re lucky enough to score a seat outside on the terrace, you’re guaranteed a fabulous time sauntering under the Parisian sun, drinking rosé and munching on a chèvre chaud salad. Somehow light always hits this particular terrace on a perfect angle and it’s always glitzing — perfect for social media.
Photo: Courtesy of Hôtel Particulier ce Montmartre
This is your ultimate secret garden in the middle of Montmartre. It only helps that you’re inside the former villa of the Hermès family. At the top of a secret stairway, behind a gate, on a leafy avenue, Hôtel Particulier de Montmartre hides a particular outstanding bar where you can spoil yourself with a cocktail or three.
This place has been on the radar of the city’s chicest spots for a year now and still going strong. Paris’ most photogenic restaurant offers scrumptious Italian cuisine and endlessly flowing wine. Extra points if you speak Italian because the waiters, cooks, and chefs have all come directly from the Boot. Since there are no reservations at Pink Mamma, if you score a table you’re extra lucky to be eating at a picture-perfect location.
Paris is a city of caves and catacombs, and somehow all the best places are underground, both figuratively and literally. While you won’t bump into Josephine Baker, you cannot visit Paris without listening to some good jazz. Both caves offer only the best kind. Caveau de la Huchette is a bit spacier and better known for playing a part in 2016’s La La Land. Caveau des Oubliettes on the other hand is a local jazz dive bar just steps away. You’ll find yourself smoking outside with the musicians or chatting up a famous contemporary artists without even knowing. It helps that historically, this exact location was a watch point for Paris, which was just the island of Île de la Citè at that point. Paris was seized a few times, but the caveau played its part as well and it housed the last guillotine in Paris. The guillotine has wonderfully disappeared since then, but the jazz plays on.
Since it opened shy of a year ago, Ian Schrager’s PUBLIC Hotel continues to dominate nightlife with its lively parties and location in the heart of downtown. One highlight is the hotel’s bar (1 of 3), Diego. The space is a mix of cozy and sexy, brought out by velvet upholstery, a fireplace, and dim candlelight. The intimate boutique hotel design, featuring Diego Rivera decor, and mezcal drinks surely make the bar one of New York’s cabinets of chic curiosities. Come by on a Wednesday evening and you’ll even hear some live jazz! Now how’s that for your own little private party?
With a launch of a new spring cocktail menu, Diego offered us an under-the-bar recipe to one of their spring cocktails.
Porto Alegre is a sophisticated cocktail that offers an elegantly light mouthfeel.
Photo courtesy of Public Hotels.
PORTO ALEGRE RECIPE:
1.5oz Pandan infused J&W Scotch
1oz Coconut Water
1/2oz Avua Ambruana Cachaca
1/2oz Lemon
1/2oz Orgeat
1/4oz Brown butter infused Falernum
1/4oz Pineapple
scant 1/4oz Spicy Ginger
2 jap dash Orange bitters
Method of Preparation
Build all ingredients in a small shaker tin. Whip and shake. Serve in pilsner glass with an angostura, mint, and grated cinnamon top.
Special thanks to Nate Otten for his bartender tips!
Gone are the days of the single faceted fashion label, as Giorgio Armani’s proactive boost in lifestyle enterprises reaches impressive new heights. While the new made to measure campaign takes the advertising world by storm, the Italian fashion house is not sitting idly back. With a state-of-the-art, high-end residential complex currently in development for Beijing, music-streaming app poised to burst onto the Apple Music/Tidal playing field, and a brand new exhibition space, the Armani lifestyle brand is more integrated and overtly extensive than ever before.
Image: Armani.
The new Smart Hero-Central Park Plaza Residences, a collaborative effort between luxury furnishings subdivision Armani/Casa Interior Design Studio and Smart Hero Group, will be part of the largest urban park in Asia when construction completes, as well as the leading green building complex in China through environmental integration with the nearby Chaoyang Park. The Beijing residency will join the already lucrative Armani Hotel chain, which boasts upscale locations in both Dubai and Milan, and supplement the ever-growing Armani property sector
Image: Armani.
The residence, voted one of the “Top 10 Contemporary Buildings in China” by China’s Ministry of Culture, is designed by Ma Yansong and boasts an impressive peak and slop exterior design, mixing Western design with Eastern philosophy. As with any Armani property, the brand oversees all aspects of the interior and style design, including the specially created furniture pieces by the Armani/Casa collection, and will blend seamlessly with the established aesthetic already curated in the previous properties.
Image: Armani.
The lifestyle presence extends even further through Emporio Armani Sounds, the latest tech effort that combines the exhilarating world of fashion with the world-class audio of Spotify, adding to Armani’s digital space. Branching off of the fashion brand’s DJ series, Emporio Armani Sounds x Standard Sounds—whose Vol. 2 occurrence closed last fall’s New York Fashion Week— the app showcases EA’s rich world of music and features performances, handpicked playlists, and interviews by artists like Mark Ronson, Calvin Harris, and La Roux. Armani-produced fashion content will go live on the app on a weekly basis and users will be able to discover what songs are playing in nearby Emporio Armani stores instantly.
Image: Armani.
After 40 years of continued operation and growth, the brand also celebrates with a new Milan-based exhibition, Armani/Silos, a four-floor dedicated space, that chronicles the numerous themes and inspirations of the brand. Including daywear, exoticisms, color-schemes, and light, important moments from the label’s history are housed in the converted ’50s storage facility and nestled in a honeycomb layout that is arranged by aesthetic relation.
While Armani/Silos is currently open and Emporio Armani Sounds is available now for both iOS and Android devices, the Smart Hero-Central Park Plaza Residences is projected to complete construction in 2017.
