I love to work at the crossroads between the digital and the physical realms and I'm a long time admirer of the world of fashion. When I was presented with the opportunity to design the digital location for a fashion photoshoot, I jumped at it and it was a truly rewarding experience.
Since the beginning of the project I knew that the space was also meant to be carried over into the Metaverse and had to be conceived as a functional and logical architecture that users could explore and interact with. For that reason I teamed up with the talented M. Valentina Cosani and together we transported the photoshoot from the real world into the digital realm.
We devised the fictional MEDICI hotel in one of the most coveted locations on lake Como and fully designed its glamorous lobby to serve as the photoshoot's virtual location
As it's often the case with our projects, extensive sketch work has been undertaken to conceive the space. Being an architectural project for the Metaverse we weren't shy at playing with scale in the first iterations, at one point contemplating a huge hall with gigantic statues. However we felt such scale would have dwarfed the photoshoot's model and ultimately been too distracting.
We also wanted this space to feel real, as if it could be a real lobby for a real hotel in the real world, and this convinced us to bring the project down to a more human scale and instead focus on the elegant, sophisticated details that make up this wonderful place.
We wanted the virtual guests to be welcomed by something out of the ordinary, a worthy crown jewel for such a luxurious environment.
We also wanted an idea that could be built in the real world, as we were convinced that this could help with inflating a stronger sense of realism in the architecture and making the photoshoot itself more grounded.
At the start of the project Valentina joked that, since we were working in the Metaverse, we could have done anything we wanted, even playing with gravity. That's exactly what we did. We envisioned the space as an upside down pool, with water floating above the bedazzled guests, upending their sense of direction.
For this purpose we devised a huge 22m disk made out of stainless steel sheets stamped into a water ripples pattern. The disk's metal surface reflects the lobby's lights below projecting a magical array of caustics that make the visitors' experience that more immersive.
Three elegant statues populate the space, drawing the guests' eyes towards the ceiling and reinforcing the feeling that they too are suspended above the pool, their beautiful long hair flowing towards the water.
We imagined the lobby as a place where guests are invited to pause, relax and hang out. To that end we devised an observation deck at the center of the space, a curvaceous element gracefully connecting the three statues where guests can lie down on soft surfaces and enjoy the sight. A luminous ring of changing lights will be placed around the disk in the ceiling to make the metal ripples feel dynamic, stirred by a gentle, ever-changing motion.
" Three elegant statues appear to be suspended above the pool, their beautiful long hair flowing towards the water. "
Each detail of the space, no matter how small, was carefully crafted to offer guests a truly memorable experience.
The lobby is based on a triangular layout with the entrance located on one of its three sides.
The circular observation deck invites the visitors to move circularly through the space and easily reach the reception and the lounge located on the other two sides of the triangle.
An exquisite golden mosaic stands behind the long marble desk of the reception and the same mosaic reappears on the lounge walls creating a sophisticated visual connection between the two spaces.
For the lounge we envisioned a polished marble cylinder, almost floating in space, which we cut horizontally, revealing the warm light of the bar hidden at its heart.
Each detail of the space, no matter how small, was carefully crafted, from the triangular carpets down to the floor design. Notice how the area immediately surrounding the bar has a different type of floor and how this purposefully extends towards the lounge entrance to visually invite the guests to take their seat.
Like for the cylinder at the center of the lounge, the recurrent theme throughout the project is the contrast between heavy and light, between the monolithic gravitas of marble/gold and the ethereal weightlessness of the statues and the water floating above them.
