Nintendo's former HQ to reopen as hotel designed by Tadao Ando

Japanese architect Tadao Ando has transformed a building that was once home to video game giant Nintendo into a boutique hotel.

Due to open on 1 April, Marufukuro Hotel will be located in Kyoto in a building that was occupied by Nintendo between 1933 and 1959, when the company was called Yamauchi Nintendo.

At the time, the company was a manufacturer of Japanese playing cards called "hanafuda" and Western-style playing cards called "karuta" and "toranpu".

The building was home to Nintendo from 1933 to 1959

Located in the Kagiyacho neighbourhood, just north of Kyoto railway station, the building has been unoccupied ever since Nintendo vacated it.

Ando has renovated and extended the old structure, converting it into an 18-room hotel including a restaurant, bar, spa and gym.

The building's exterior has remained largely unchanged, retaining elements such as old Yamauchi Nintendo entrance plaques and window grilles patterned with details from the old playing cards.

Ando's task was to reimagine the building's interior but incorporate many of its original 1930s details, which include decorative tiling and art-deco lighting fixtures.

Art-deco details are retained in the renovation

For the annex, the architect has adopted a more modern approach with floor-to-ceiling windows and elements in raw concrete, the material he is famous for.

Photos of the completed Marufukuro Hotel have so far been kept under wraps, but the hotel is already taking bookings and has released some visuals showing layout and furniture details in the guest rooms.

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Guests can choose to stay in either the old or new parts of the building, in rooms ranging in size between 33 and 79 square metres.

The project is backed by property developer Plan Do See.

Tadao Ando converted the existing building into an 18-room hotel

Ando is among Japan's most prolific architects. Awarded the Pritzker Prize in 1995, his best-known projects include Church of the Light and Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum.

Recent projects include the renovation of the Bourse de Commerce building in Paris, which proved controversial, and art centre Casa Wabi in Mexico.

It was recently announced that Ando is designing a Palm Springs home for reality TV star Kim Kardashian.

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This week Kim Kardashian revealed Tadao Ando and Kengo Kuma were designing her holiday homes

This week on Dezeen, we covered the news that leading Japanese architects Tadao Ando and Kengo Kuma are designing holiday homes for the American reality star Kim Kardashian.

In a recent Vogue interview, Kardashian explained how she commissioned the architects to create a "zen" mansion in Palm Springs and a lakeside lodge for celebrating the Fourth of July.

Pritzker Architecture Prize winning-architect Ando is designing a two-storey mansion with a curved triangular footprint while Kuma is said to be working on a "glass-and-wood lake house".

A Mies van der Rohe-designed building completed in Indiana

In architecture news, a building designed in 1952 by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was finally realised at Indiana University in Bloomington.

New York architecture studio Thomas Phifer and Partners adapted the design to create what is now called the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design, more than 50 years after the architect's death.

MIT engineers have invented plastic that is stronger than steel

In design news, MIT engineers announced the invention of a new type of plastic that is stronger than steel and has "very unusual properties".

The material, which is referred to as 2DPA-1, has similar properties to plastic as it is light and mouldable yet differs in that it has much greater strength and resistance.

Sou Fujimoto, Benedetta Tagliabue and Paula Scher were named judges for Dezeen Awards 2022

Following the launch of Dezeen Awards 2022, we announced the first 15 judges.

Among the judges announced so far are notable architects Sou Fujimoto and Benedetta Tagliabue, industrialist Alberto Alessi and visual artist Charlotte Taylor.

Killa Design's Museum of the Future opened in Dubai

In Dubai, the Museum of the Future opened its doors to the public. Heralded as "the most beautiful building in the world" by the emirate's ruler, the seven-storey building contains exhibits dedicated to the future and hosts workshops for testing emerging technology.

Designed by local studio Killa Design, it is positioned alongside Dubai's elevated train line near the Burj Khalifa skyscraper – the world's tallest building.

Elon Musk proposed a Tesla tunnel in Miami

In transport news, Elon Musk's infrastructure firm The Boring Company submitted plans to build the North Miami Beach Loop tunnel in Miami.

The six-mile-long tunnel, through which a fleet of Teslas would operate, would connect the commuter railway station at Golden Glades with Sunny Isles Beach on the city's eastern coast.

Neil Dusheiko transformed a London fashion showroom into light-filled home

Popular projects this week included a light-filled home in west London, a vacation home in Columbia and a sunken house in rural Mexico.

Our lookbooks this week focused on terrazzo floors and interiors that swap corners for curves.

This week on Dezeen

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Tadao Ando and Kengo Kuma designing holiday homes for Kim Kardashian

Kim Kardashian has hired leading Japanese architects Tadao Ando and Kengo Kuma to build a pair of vacation homes in the US – a "zen" mansion in Palm Springs and a lakeside lodge for celebrating the Fourth of July.

The reality TV star shared details of the projects during a recent interview with Vogue, in which she discussed her ongoing "love affair with architecture, specifically Japanese".

Tadao Ando (above) has designed a holiday home for a plot in Greater Palm Springs (top image)

Kuma, who designed the timber-clad National Stadium for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, is working on a "glass-and-wood lake house" in an undisclosed location, where Kardashian says she plans to spend Independence Days with her family.

Meanwhile, in a private gated community to the south of Palm Springs, Pritzker Architecture Prize winning-architect Ando is designing a two-storey mansion with a curved triangular footprint that has been compared to a spaceship.

The final result will be "concrete, gray-toned, and really zen", Kardashian revealed.

[

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In the Vogue interview, Kardashian explained that her love for architecture began during the seven-year renovation of her Calabasas home, which she shared with rapper Kanye West before filing for divorce last February.

The couple bought the house together in 2014, gutting and reimagining it in collaboration with Belgian designer Axel Vervoordt and architect Vincent Van Duysen to create a building so monochrome and sparsely furnished that Kardashian jokingly describes it as a "minimal monastery".

One of the only exceptions is the guest house, which comes in the form of a traditional shoin-zukuri dwelling that was shipped all the way across the Pacific Ocean.

Kengo Kuma is designing a lake house for Kim Kardashian. Photo is by JC Carbonne

"I'm really inspired by Japanese culture," Kardashian explained in an interview with i-D. "Our guest house is actually a samurai's old home that my art dealer, Axel Vervoordt, used to own."

"We got the bones of this old house from Japan and built it into our house, because it had such a different energy, this house has the energy of a warrior."

Kardashian recently acquired full ownership of the Calabasas house as part of the couple's ongoing divorce proceedings, while West purchased a bachelor pad in Malibu that was designed by Ando in 2013.

Although the planning application for Kardashian's own Ando-designed property was filed in November, the construction plans have since been delayed as the local council has requested more information to determine whether the building meets fire safety and pool codes.

The top image is courtesy of Google Earth. Tadao Ando's portrait is byChristopher Schriner via Wikimedia Commons.

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