amangiri

Intelligence Made Visible: Travel + Leisure Design Awards 2011

Filed under: Luxury Travel & Hotels, By Design, Architecture & Design

Great design is intelligence made visible, but great travel design must take this idea to the next level -- it can't just look pretty, it has to combine functionality, strength, and ease of use. Those of us who travel do NOT have time for things that don't work, aren't strong, and don't make our lives easier while on the road.

For seven years, the Travel + Leisure Design Awards have rewarded companies, products, hotels, innovators, and innovations of every type with recognition and gratitude in making the travelers lives better and their travel expereience more memorable. In addition, an overall Design Champion is named.

"The 2011 Design Awards underscore and celebrate the significant impact that good design has on travel," said Nancy Novogrod, Editor-In Chief of Travel + Leisure. "Our judges are not T+L Editors. The jurors look for exceptional function, unqiue statement and inventive reinterpretation."

The panel of jurors include:

David Childs, chairman emeritus, Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill
Paulette Cole, CEO and creative director, ABC Carpet & Home
Fred Dust, partner, IDEO
Norma Kamali, fashion designer
Danny Meyer, CEO, Union Square Hospitality Group
Nadja Swarovski, creative director, Swarovski Crystal
Henry Urbach, curator of architecture and design, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
T+L's Consulting Design Editor Chee Pearlman was the jury moderator.

Winners of these seventh annual awards represent the best new examples of design in a range of categories from hotels and transportation to luggage and travel fashion. They will be honored at the New World Center in Miami on February 23rd.

Below is a list of the Travel + Leisure Design Award winners:

Best Large Hotel: The Yas Hotel (see above) in Abu Dhabi,UAE, is set half on land and half on water, overlooking the Yas Marina & Yacht Club and positioned on the Yas Marina Circuit, which plays host to the annual Formula 1™ Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Tags: 11 11 Lincoln Road Miami, Amangiri, Apple iPad, Ashmolean Museum, Ashmolean Museum Oxford, Bowers Wilkins PS Noise-Isolating Headphones, Brussels, FreeCity Supershop Supermat, Hussen Chalayan, Jambox Portable Speaker by Jawbone, Nissan LEAF, Norwegian Cruise Line Epic Studios, Norwegian Cruise Lines, Pantone Hotel, Pantone Hotel Brussels, Patagonia M10 jacket, Patagonia Ultralight Down jacket, Snow Peak Hozuki Lantern, Table 1 Shanghai, The Nissan LEAF, Travel + Leisure Design Awards, Travel + Leisure Magazine, Tumi Vapor Collection, Urban Mobility Pack by Puma, Yas Hotel Abu Dhabi, Yas Marina and Yacht Club, Yas Marina Circuit

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New Villa and Tent Design Dimensions for Amangiri: An Interview With Homi Vazifdar

by Susan Kime (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Travel & Hotels, By Design

For those of us who have lived in the high desert and camped in the red rock country of Southern Utah, we understand its magic. We understand why many of the great belief systems of both the cultures of East and West were borne in the desert, as you can almost hear whispers of Deity, punctured through the sanctified silence. We also understand, when spending time at the Escalante Staircase, or the Vermilion Cliffs, our miniscule place in the trajectory of history, resting amid billion year old sculpted rocks, along paths trod first by dinosaurs. We never thought that this land could be used for anything commercial. And yet, on a rock escarpment, under the the spangled scarf of the Milky Way, lies Amangiri.

The name, Amangiri, is derived from Sanskrit, meaning 'peaceful mountain.' It is the latest offering from Aman Resorts, and is located in a very unusual place -- in the center of the Grand Circle, surrounded by the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Grand Staircase – Escalante, Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks. It is in the Red Rock country of Southern Utah, and has one of the most dramatic, colorful, yet mysterious and isolated topographies anywhere. This ancient part of the world encompasses and projects the natural (versus cultural) meaning of luxury – involving time's irrelevance, desert peace, and needful human anonymity gratefully experienced under the cliffs and stars.

Tags: Adrian Zecha, Amangiri, AmanResorts, Escalante Staircase, Four Corners Area Southern Utah, Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, Homi Vazifdar, Lake Powell, Luxury tents, Red Rock Country Southern Utah, Southern Utah resorts, Vermillion Cliffs

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First Amangiri Villas Hit The Market

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Real Estate Developments

I first wrote about Amangiri, the second U.S. offering from AmanResorts (the other, the Amangani, is in Jackson Hole, Wyoming) way back in 2005. Now three years later the first eight villas in the Lake Powell area of Southern Utah, are hitting the market at a very hefty $7 million each. The first eight are part of a total of 31 villas being created by the resort's developer, Canyon Group. The Amangiri Resort is scheduled to open at the start of 2009. The villas sit on private home sites that range from 1.3 to 10 acres and are designed to blend into the landscape. They feature multiple pavilions around a central swimming pool and firepit and each villa also incorporates a unique signature feature, such as an arroyo meditation platform. Can the struggling Southwest real estate market support this type of high-end real estate? Three years ago it seemed like a great idea, now it's less of a sure thing.

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Tags: amangiri, lake powell, real esate, utah, villas