[ GRAFT ] City Center’s Aria Pool Deck, Restaurant & Bar

GRAFT Architects have completed the Aria Pool Deck, Restaurant & Bar at the City Center development in Las Vegas, Nevada.

City Center is a mixed use, 18 million square feet, development by MGM Mirage that features buildings by several world renowned architects. The unique seventy-six acre urban resort is located in the heart of the famed Las Vegas Strip and is a collection of luxury hotels, condominiums, casinos, shopping facilities, and entertainment venues. To date, it is the largest privately financed development in the history of the United States and is also the largest LEED Certified project in the world.

City Center consists of a collection of spectacular hotels and residences, casinos, spas and retail areas, including Aria, Vdara, the Mandarin Oriental, Veer Towers and Crystals. Located at the base of Aria, the main resort and casino, the pool deck is a lush tropical lagoon. It is an intimate sanctuary of cabanas around a luscious pool area in the midst of the larger vision of the City Center.  The structures constitute a fusion of the stunning beauty and richness of the tropics and the simplicity of our contemporary culture. The architecture consists of a series of overlapping contours that were envisioned as a metaphor of fluidity and as a means to establish a spatial hierarchy for the distinct lounge areas. The project serves 1,500 guests and consists of 52 separate cabanas,2  bars, a restaurant, retail and a European pool lounge.

The individual buildings, designed as a family of structures set within a landscape, offer unique variation while unifying the overall composition of the pool deck and resort. This is achieved through the use of a similar material palate and through the formal relationships of those materials that are a play between monolithic forms and panelized sections that create unique figure group relationships.

The material palette was selected to reflect the architecture and luxury of the tropics in a combination with the simplicity of contemporary minimalism. The used materials, including massaranduba wood and various textiles, were chosen not only for their haptic and optical sensations, but also in accordance with our commitment to the environment.

Breeze Café
The hungry patron can enter the Breeze Café and Pool Bar, located at the eastern end of the lagoon. The structure is inspired by the cooling experience of Mangrove forests. Large canopies provide shade, while simultaneously allowing free air flow through the openings between the roof structures, creating an enticing play of light and shadows in the space.  The interplay of warm, comforting wood and sculptural white plaster surfaces enhances the experience of an opulent refuge from the sizzling sun.

Pool Bar
The pool bar is envisioned as  a protected cliff dwelling in the center of the area. The large overhang provides cooling shade and protection from the sun. The monolithic white structure is opening itself to invite the guests, revealing a welcoming wood interior with an abstracted image of a canyon behind the bar.

Liquid Pool Lounge
The third architectural component is a secluded cove at the western and of the pool area. It is an adult-only escape to another world of relaxation. A refuge was created that continues the material palette of the other zones, but uses a different architectural and spatial language, in order to set it apart from the adjacent areas. The Liquid Pool Lounge is operated by the Light Group. The back bar features original artwork by Los Angeles artist Camron Slocum.

from  contemporist