Dynamically stacked - nhow Amsterdam RAI Hotel

Amsterdam's south side is booming. Bordering on the Bahn­hof Zuid/World Trade Center train station and the RAI exhibition centre, the highly compact »Zuidas« residential and business district emerged at the start of the new millennium. It incorporates numerous high-rise buildings – in contrast to the historic city centre. The latest addition to the imposing skyline is the nhow Amsterdam RAI hotel, which opened in January 2020, and is situated next to the exhibition centre that dates from 1961.

Following the nhow Rotterdam, opened in 2014, and situated in the landmark »De Rotterdam« high-rise complex, the 24-storey nhow Amsterdam RAI is the second project where the hotel chain has worked with OMA. »For the design of the building, we were inspired by the triangular 1960s-era advertising column on the Europaplatz in front of the exhibition centre,« explains project architect Michel van de Kar. The result is an iconic building shape which is visually striking from every vantage point, with three characteristically stacked volumes sitting on a circular base, each rotated 60 degrees to one another and with an integrated triangular floor plan. Two continuously glazed floors with a varying hexagonal floor plan act as the »axle« connecting the individual building structures. The modernity of the newbuild is accentuated by the symmetrically screened unitised façade (a special construction based on Schüco AWS 75) with its 4000 V-shaped profiles made from anodised aluminium.

The hotel is accessed via a two-storey lobby in the continuously glazed base, which also hosts separately leased retail spaces on the ground floor as well as a restaurant and lounge on the first floor. Directly above are 19 hotel floors, each with 24 to 36 rooms, broken up by the two intermediate storeys with a fitness centre and breakfast hall. The interior design of the individual rooms is the work of NEXT architects in collaboration with the Spanish architectural practice GLG/MVSA.