MIRAMONTI Boutique Hotel - kingdom of peace, oasis of natural beauty.
Set 1230m above sea level, this jewel first opened its door at the beginning of the 20th century as a guest house with three rooms. Overlooking the city of Merano, it recently became a hotspot for young souls of the area to flock to.
The Hotel has been completely renovated, showcasing “The Owner’s House”, a home within the hotel. Nine rooms built of wood in clean architectural style and essential interiors, utilizing hand-made designer pieces alongside natural materials, and boasting shielded terraces offering spectacular views.
The freshly launched Q-SUITE (which guests can access from a secret door... magestically entering near the handmade spiral iron stair), debuts this month. This 42square meter suite lays upon the ground floor built over rock and one can’t help but marvel while looking through the 12-meter wide frameless glass window, offering a great view over the Adige valley.
The suite furthermore features Vitra Design furniture and local porphyry stone flooring with a walk-in shower boasting an extraordinary view over the city of Merano - you will feel like you’re showering in the heart of the forest!
For 5 years, this urban hotel is part of the SLH collection (Small Luxury Hotels of The World). The SLH group features a diverse collection of over 500 hotels in more than 80 countries around the world - its hotels are united by the offer of the prime locations, high quality, and a truly authentic way to discover a destination. This one of a kind retreat will pamper you with a charmful and eclectic sense of hospitality. The idea of the “undisputed protagonist” is all about the new and the traditional blending together flawlessly in a youthful but elegant and functional combination.
Design and atmosphere are a conscious priority, the Alpine style and the strength of nature play a supporting role when it comes to creating new spaces and emotional worlds. The immense glass-windows, the sapient use of the local stone, the refined Nordic inspired furnishings and setting, the chic accessories provide a guarantee 100% made in Italy and they’re all proof that “style is the answer to everything”.
What makes Miramonti a truly unique experience is the Vitalis SPA, for those deserving some pampering, you’re cuddled between indoor solutions such as Finnish saunas and Turkish baths or you can abandon yourself to a dedicated organic Spa treatment and rest in one of the relaxing areas while enjoying panoramic view.
One of the trade marks of Miramonti boutique hotel would be its salt-water 16 meters long infinity edge pool. Maintained at 32°C, it’s accessible all year-round and boasts views of St. Katherine church, which was constructed in the 13th century. Like a warm cave leads you to the stunning scenery in all four seasons.
With direct access from the 4th floor you can loose yourself, strolling along pathways in a leafy and natural protected forest of 30-hectares behind the structure.
Just a short drive away from Merano, with a population of 700 people, Avelengo is a tip for globetrotters and nature lovers where you will find the combination of luxury and naturalness, life and joy, happiness and satisfaction.
Thanks to the perfect location and the excellent organization “self-made” hoteliers Carmen and Klaus, owners of this dream built on the rock, offer you a series of activities to assure an authentic experience within nature: close to Merano 2000 Sky area with 40 km of groomed slopes, ski-tours, ice-climbing, horseback riding. From April to October, Klaus will accompany you himself through a very personal wine tasting tour to discover the local products and cellars of South Tyrol region.
Not to be left unmentioned, the culinary experience at Miramonti is simply elevated. With three different options: Panorama Restaurant, Klassik or Stube, which will meet your needs with a varied list of delightful courses. The cuisine is well-structured to guarantee authenticity of the taste, flavors of the territory and particular attention is given to the excellent quality and freshness of the ingredients.
The attention to the guest is 360-degree and always present. All staff members will take care of you - lending itself from a memorable hospitality experience to a well-deserved “time out”.
[quote_box name=""]“While the world around us is changing more and more quickly, we want to be a place of steadfastness and peace. A place with its own strength and its own aura. “Hard to find, hard to forget” - that’s how the MIRAMONTI should be remembered. Hard to forget, because we have already thought ahead for you. Because we can identify with you. We understand your needs and turn them into beautiful experiences.”
Carmen & Klaus.[/quote_box]
Human Hotel: a travel community of creative hosts
[dropcap]H[/dropcap]uman Hotel is a travel community founded by the artists, curators and visionaires of the social design studio Wooloo and artistic community Wooloo.org, the first online community for professional artists. They are currently based in an old chocolate factory in Copenhagen, Denmark.
They started experimenting in 2007, when in NYC they started Life Exchange, where participants left a Chelsea townhouse with each others clothes and life. In 2008 they organized a festival that brought together artists, creative projects and architects in Berlin. An interesting project of the festival was Fictive Days, where people lived as their favourite fictional character for two weeks.
In 2010, commissioned to create a work for Manifesta 8 biennal, they matched five artists with five blind locals to live and work together. In a completely dark place.
And from 2012 they started the project of Human Hotel, firstly in Copenhagen and then in many other European cities and in the USA.
For example, you could stay in Copenhagen with Cecilia, a visual artist who works with 2-d digital animation and in the field of Artists Books. She teaches workshops for children at the National Gallery of Art in Copenhagen.
She rents her house just near Copenhagen's lakes and the interiors are perfect for people who love pastel colours.
And while you are booking for Cecilia's guest room, Human Hotel gives tips for artsy activities to do in the city you are staying. In Copenhagen it's possible to visit the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and go to Rineke Dijkstra photography exhibition.
Rineke is a true master of modern portraiture that studies identity, vulnerability and dignity. Her photographs show a sense of humanity, empathy and intimacy without sentimentality or indiscretion. She captures people, who are going through a moment of transition or vulnerability. This year she won The Hasselblad Award. Her exhibition started in September and will end on the 30th December 2017.
4 STARS HOTEL
The Eurostars Roma Congress Hotel and Convention Center, a modern four-star hotel almost a kilometre from Rome’s ring road (Grande Raccordo Anulare) on the eastern periphery of the city, closed unexpectedly in December 2011, laying off 60 workers. The structure is part of the international luxury chain Eurostars, which owns more than 50 hotels worldwide, predominantly oriented towards a business clientele.
The imposing glass structure remained abandoned for almost a year, until it became occupied by 200 migrant families, led by the BPM collective (Blocchi Precari Metropolitani), one of the most well-known movements tackling the housing crisis in the capital. The occupation is part of a wave of activism that took place on 6 December 2012, bringing around 3,000 people living in a housing emergency into dozens of unsold or unused buildings to shouts of ‘let’s take back the city’.
4Stelle Hotel is inhabited by around 500 people, comprising 30 different nationalities, who predominantly come from the Maghreb, the Horn of Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa. They have been able to revitalise the hotel through shared re-activation of the rooms and communal spaces, according to a process of internal self-organisation, including cleaning rotas and picket lines. Some of the occupants have lived in Italy for years, others have escaped from regimes, revolution and extreme poverty. All of them claim with dignity their right to a home and a better future.
4Stelle Hotel is the story of this multi-ethnic apartment building, which is fighting for a brighter future, under constant threat of eviction by the authorities. The home, in fact, is not only a shelter: it is a right to be claimed and defended.
The story is also a webdocumentary available at www.4stellehotel.it made with the videomaker Paolo Palermo.
Valerio Muscella, 1985, Italy. He held a degree in psychology and transcultural studies and he has been working for an Ngo in South America and in the Balkans in the international cooperation for development field. He became a self-taught freelance photographer specialized in photographic reportage focusing his attention on social issues and borderline stories. He is currently collaborating with an audiovisual archive documenting social movements and issues related to migration.
Dar Hi eco lodge
Architect: Matali Crasset
Where: Nefta, Tunisia
Photos: Jerome Spriet
After the experience of the HI hotel in Nice, now Dar HI in Nefta which is the fruit of the collaboration between Matali Crasset, Patrick Elouarghi and Philippe Chapelet with a new concept of eco-retreat. Matali literally rose a citadel, from the sand, dedicated to well being. Protected by surroundings walls you find a composition of elevated houses that constitute the Dar HI as a small village. The overall architectural goal was to give a strong proposition while in harmony with the natural site and the local life. Dar HIʼs main colours are ochre and sand with a comprehensive choice of body and spirit care within areas that are private or communal, a pool, a restaurant and a Spa.Read more
Alma Hotel
Architects: LAN
Where: Atacama Desert, Chile
The hotel project rapidly became a small city project, a human settlement in which is combined habitat, commerce, education, politics, culture. To achieve the announced objective, the architects set a strategy where each component of the project plays an essential role in the definition of the whole: rooms becomes roof, roof is a plaza, the plaza a window, the window a façade, the façade a landscape, etc.