Like the Persian Gulf waters that meet the shore, the walls crest and swell, rising and falling to envelop guests and passerby in an Oceanic whirl. At the gateway to Dubai’s newly completed Jumeirah Marsa Al Arab resort, the strikingly intricate ceramic installation by Dutch designers Studio RAP brings a surprisingly sculptural sense of depth and motion to a hotel lobby.
Dubbed Blue Voyage, Studio RAP’s curved walls rank among the largest displays of architectural ceramics in the world. Measuring approximately six metres in height and nine metres in length on both walls, the installation comprises some 900 bespoke, 3D-printed tiles in all. Evoking the gently breaking coastal water, the custom tiles amplify their depth and dimension with a gradient of colour, hinting at cresting white foam atop deep blue waves.
Fabricated at Studio RAP’s in-house facility in Rotterdam, the Blue Voyage tiles take advantage of cutting-edge technology to create an immersive effect. Shaped by parametric design, the fine layers of material that characterize 3D-printed forms create intricately layered ridges when viewed up close.
Throughout the day, the movement of light and shadow lends the curved walls an even more kinetic presence, making the sense of arrival to the hotel — which is itself housed in a sinuously curved building — all the more dramatic.
And while the curved walls embrace passerby in an immersive blue cocoon, the most technically sophisticated elements are the rounded tiles that cap the two walls on either side. The complex end tiles seamlessly extend the pattern around the corners, conveying a feeling of cohesion across the entire surface. Marginally darker than the surrounding surfaces, they serve as elegant bookends to a unified whole.
For Studio RAP, Blue Voyage represents another step in an evolving portfolio of architectural 3D-printed ceramics, which ranges from a residential facade in the historic core of Amsterdam to a vivid corridor in a new housing development in Delft. In Dubai, the innovative studio has delivered another showpiece of inspiring scale and intricate precision.
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