Dolder Grand Hotel, Zurich, Switzerland: extension completed 2008 by Foster + Partners, photo: Foster + Partners

Journalist Klaus Leuschel provides a crash course in, and a guided tour of, grand hotels, and how even design excellence in the five-star tradition is of no avail when the quality of hospitality does not match it.

read this article in full on Architonic

J. W. Marriott Hotel by RMJM

International architectural company RMJM has designed, on behalf of developer Őzkar Construction Co., a new luxury hotel that will help ‘green’ the Sogutozu district of Ankara, the capital city of Turkey.

the building is located on a 14,000 square-meter site

The hotel, which will be completed on October 2010, will bring innovative sustainable design to the city and will include a unique design of vertical stone fins that will act as solar shading devices on the east and west facades.

guest rooms start on the fifth floor

The glass curtain wall uses environmentally friendly materials such as high-performing, low-e coating and tinting that contributes to the reduced solar heat gain. Plentiful bamboo trees and vegetation will be included in the landscape to offer additional shading at the site.

to RMJM

seen @ archdaily