There are beautiful hotels – and then there are hotels with beautiful design, where exceptional attention to interiors and architecture elevates the entire experience for their guests. In this edition of our series of design hotels to watch, we visit Dame Zaha Hadid’s creation, ME Dubai
Not many hotels can lay claim to being designed inside and out by the late Pritzker-awarded architect Dame Zaha Hadid. In fact, only one can – the ME Dubai by Melia. Taking residence in futuristic Business Bay landmark The Opus, just seconds from Dubai Creek and its Dubai Water Canal, this five-star boutique hotel – rare in a city of luxury high-rises boasting hundreds of keys – appears to be a huge cube with curvaceous hole pushing through the centre from the outside. In fact, it’s a pair of towers connected at both the top and bottom.
“The building’s appearance plays off the strong contrast given to its two distinct facades of the all-glass envelope: a clear glass curtain wall with a distinct fritting pattern for the exterior faces and a blue tinted glass for the free form interior void,” explains Christos Passas, project designer at Zaha Hadid Architects.
First impressions start well in the lobby, where guests are greeted with a glass ceiling plus three stories of galactic galleries with projecting balconies. Here, plush burgundy curved ottomans and the Petalina sofas courtesy of Zaha Hadid Design contrast against gleaming white marble floors, both crafted from long lifecycle, recyclable materials.
ME Dubai is home to 74 bedrooms and 19 suites, each of which inherits the same ultra-modern design language found in the atrium. Ergonomic Zaha Hadid-designed king-sized beds come as standard, as do curved walls, wavy furnishings, retro rugs and trippy bathrooms that make guests feel as though they are stepping onto the bridge of a futuristic spaceship.
Elsewhere, the hotel gets five stars for its sustainability credentials, too. It makes every room plastic-free, issuing guests with their own stainless steel water bottle – there are plenty of water dispensers located all around the hotel, and chefs forgo your traditional gluttonous buffets to help cut down on food waste.
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