Firm Principal Randy Shortridge was recently quoted in luxury real estate periodical Mansion Global. [au]workshop’s design for the Mandarin Oriental Honolulu, including the cantilevered sky garden and extensive private lanais, was one of several designs discussed in the context of a rising demand for a connection to the outdoors in urban environments.

“ ‘A connection to nature is vital to everyone’s health and wellbeing,’ said Randy Shortridge, cofounder of [au]workshop and architect of The Residences at Mandarin Oriental in Honolulu. ‘People need sunlight and value the long view, the ability to see the horizon. Landscaping stimulates all the senses, too.’ ”

- Mansion Global - “The Ultimate Amenity”

Read the full article, also featuring design from MAD Architects and Skidmore Owings & Merrill and discussions with developers, here, and see additional drawings and renderings at our project page.

The sky garden at the Mandarin Oriental Honolulu Hotel and residences greets guests with a infinity-edge reflecting pool that reconnects them to the horizon.

For all the non-architects out there, a short explanation may be necessary. The design/construction schedule from our perspective is typically described in five stages (though there is some variation in how different architects mark their progress): 

1. Conceptual Design/Entitlements: Initial programming and conceptual layout, preliminary city approvals
2. Schematic Design (SD): Establishment of key relationships and functionality, early development of key design elements, early (and on-going) coordination with Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing, and Structural engineering drawings
3. Design Development (DD): Early development of key details and further coordination with MEP/Structural drawings
4. Construction Documents (CDs): Production of documentation necessary to price and construct the project, including full coordination with MEP/Structural drawings
5. Construction Administration (CA): Continued coordination of documented elements with the construction process in the field

This whole process is also happening simultaneously within the interior design and landscape architecture disciplines, while also coordinating with the architectural team.

Whew! This is all to explain that the Mandarin Oriental Honolulu project is progressing according to schedule, with 100% SD (Schematic Design) having just been completed! We have updated our project page accordingly, with some brand new images and information. As part of developing the design, we've done extensive exploration and modeling in 3d, so we also wanted to share a quick video overview we produced. We're excited to move into Design Development as we begin the new year!

[au]workshop is thrilled to announce that the world-renowned Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group will be operating the Mana'olana Place Hotel and Residences as the Mandarin Oriental, Honolulu.

A few selections from the Mandarin Oriental and Salem Partners press releases:

“We are delighted with this opportunity to open a hotel in Honolulu and look forward to bringing Mandarin Oriental’s legendary hospitality back to Hawaii,” said James Riley, Group Chief Executive of Mandarin Oriental. “This new development will be a welcome addition to the brand’s expansion around the world,” he added.

“We are proud to bring the award-winning Mandarin Oriental brand to Honolulu,” said James Ratkovich of Salem Partners. “Mandarin Oriental, Honolulu will set a new standard for luxury service in the islands and will offer a preferred choice to travelers and potential homeowners who desire the finest accommodation,” he added. “We look forward to revitalizing this area at the gateway to Waikiki with the first TOD project in the city and bringing jobs, economic benefits, housing and a world-class hotel to Honolulu.”

Arrival Rotunda

View of Tower from Above Kapiolani Boulevard

View from Outside the Makai Penthouse

Looking Diamond Head

View from Mauka Penthouse Kitchen

Mauka Penthouse Kitchen

Mauka Penthouse Living Area

Luxury Guestroom Bath and Makai Facade

Hotel Pool Deck and Lounge

Hotel Pool Cabanas

Hotel Pool Deck

Resident Amenity Deck

We are excited to have the privilege to continue to work closely with the Mandarin group as the project continues to develop. 

For more information about the project, please see our project page, or the Mandarin Oriental or Salem Partners press releases.

We are extremely excited to be able to announce another project that we've been hard at work on in Honolulu! We have begun having community meetings and are in the process of developing the project further with a potential hotel operator. 

From our project narrative: 

1500 Kapiolani Boulevard is located in urbanized Honolulu, along a tree-lined boulevard which links downtown with Waikiki. The site is within a recently designated transit oriented district, which raises the allowable FAR to 10.0 in order to increase walkability and discourage automobile dependency.

In this context, our client asked us to design an iconic 400 foot tower (the height ceiling) combining street-oriented retail, a four star hotel and complementary housing, with the goal of capitalizing on views over and around existing buildings in all directions. 

Our solution focuses on a simple massing and an iconic form befitting the prestige of Kapiolani Boulevard, distinctly visible from Kahnamoku Lagoon, the Ala Moana Mall, and other areas of the city.  We created two separate small-footprint towers—allowing the overall mass to be oriented Mauka-Makai (Mountains-to-Ocean as desired by island residents) preserving view corridors and breeze patterns. For residents, the two-tower scheme maximizes views and cross-ventilation, as well as value: all eight units per typical level are corner units.

The central design move was to maximize usable common and private open space and create actively programmed spaces on multiple datums, culminating in a lushly-landscaped sky garden bridge/platform for building residents at 350’ in the air, indexing the city’s previous height limit. This sky garden metaphorically replaces a ground level context lost when Oahu urbanized and reconnects the site to the horizon

Hawaii’s mild climate and pleasant breezes are woven into the scheme at every turn with the goal of dissolving the barrier between conditioned and exterior space. At higher floors, breezes are mitigated with appropriately placed massing. This is evident at the hotel floors which link the towers, creating a natural wind eddy at the podium, and at the sky garden, where building mass and landscape elements shield the gathering spaces.

Open space/green space is a central focus on vertical and horizontal surfaces in our solution. In fact, as shown in the image above, the cumulative horizontal intensive and extensive open space is nearly 2.3 times the site area and is complemented with additional vertical gardens on multiple surfaces.

This project is scheduled to begin construction in late 2017.

More information is available at the project's page.  We are hard at work continuing the design process and we will continue to post updates, so keep an eye on the blog!

We've been working on a design for this site in Honolulu for months, so we're pleased that it's finally public. The project application has been accepted by the Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting and it is well along in the entitlement process.  The hotel operator is expected to be announced within a few weeks.

From our project narrative: 

Mana’olana Place | Luxury Hotel and Residences will be an instrumental catalyst in the continued revitalization of the Ala Moana Neighborhood.  The tower will include ground level retail spaces, a 125-room five-star luxury hotel and approximately 109 branded condominiums culminating in a signature restaurant and bar 400 feet above the adjacent street level.

The Mana’olana Place tower is envisioned as a modern, vertical interpretation of an indoor-outdoor sense of place and connection to the landscape embodied in the concept of lanai.  Our vision for its character began with the warm and soft tones of a wooden building softened with landscape from ground to the uppermost levels.  Terraces and balconies provide deeply shaded areas and views from these lanai frame views and create pleasant contrast and variety.  Design details will reflect a modern interpretation of a tropical environment mixed with subtle Asian influences. And at every step, gardens are woven into nearly every front-of-house experience.

When complete, the 36 story tower will represent the first implemented project in the newly adopted Ala Moana Transit-Oriented District.  With a floor area ratio of 10:1 in anticipation of the planned light rail-serviced neighborhood already anchored with the Hawaii Convention Center immediately across the street and the largest mall in the state —Ala Moana Center—located within a five minute walk, Mana’olana Place will catalyze an already diverse and active Honolulu neighborhood and will become a unique and recognizable interpretation of the tropical high-rise typology.

More information about the project is available at its page. This is only one of several projects we're working on in Hawaii, so keep an eye out for more to come!