Kurt Schuessler | Projects

SELECTED PROJECTS

HOTEL PALM BEACH, Gran Canaria, Spain, 2002–2003

RESPONSIBILITY: Senior Project Leader, Site Management
TOTAL PROJECT COSTS: 32 m Euro
DESCRIPTION: On the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and right beside the famous dunes of Maspalomas the 5 Star Hotel Palm Beach is embedded in a 1000-year-old palm grove. It is the first Design Hotel realized on the island of Gran Canaria and styled in a modern 70’s retro design.

It consits of 328 rooms and suites, three restaurants, fresh- and saltwater pools, solarium, sauna, hamam, thalasso and tennis facilities. Intensive colors and stark contrasts dominate the interior, full of fluid shapes and forms.

EXTERIOR DESIGN OF THE THEMATIC AREA, EXPO2000, Hanover, Germany, 1997–2000

RESPONSIBILITY: Graphic Design, Architecture, Site Management
PROJECT SIZE: 1000.00 by 5.00 meter
PROJECT COSTS: 1.2 m Euro
STRUCTURAL ENGINEERS (Initial design): ARUP
DESCRIPTION: Three main tasks are addressed with the exterior design of the Thematic Area.
1. Transport of key ideas of the eleven exibitions to the outside.
2. Accentuation of entrances and assistance in management of waiting lines.
3.Connecting element between five exhibition halls.
First proposal was a giant DNA structure, a tensile helix, supported by mobile cranes. The cables represented the spiraling strands and every single basis of the helix contained partial information about the expositions. They formed a genetic code of the Thematic Area. The project was abandoned by EXPO2000 only for lack of time to implement it

The scaled down second design, maybe less ambitious, but feasible in the remaining time slot was an 1 kilometer long and 5 meters high ribbon of oversized images. They literally bound the different halls together. The huge stripe of digital prints, functioning like an oversized film, gave first suggestions about the exhibitions without taking the experience away. All six entrances were marked by abstract portals made from transparent steel mesh boxes and filled with randomly chosen objects from each exposition. Animated queuing areas adapted to the average waiting period of one hour completed the queue management.