01
Entrance Lobby
Inlaid stone flowers underfoot and a canopy of suspended leaves.
Hotels & Resorts
254 | Portofino Hotel
Location
The Heart of Europe, Dubai, UAE
Type
Hotel
Status
Completed
The idea
A hotel that takes its cue from the sea.
Portofino Hotel is a hotel in The Heart of Europe, Dubai. The design follows guests from a bright entrance lobby, with a floor of inlaid stone flowers and a canopy of suspended leaves, into a tall atrium where a spiral stair winds around a tree beneath lit timber screens.
The all-day dining is shaped by arches and round openings in pale timber and stone. On the fifth floor, the Italian restaurant is a room of travertine, rippled steel ceilings, glass-bead curtains and blue mosaic, with porthole mirrors framed in oak. Above it, the roof terrace sets daybeds and dining under shade sails, against green walls and the sea.
Material palette
Blue glass mosaic
Bar counters
Rippled steel
Restaurant ceilings
Travertine & shell lights
Private dining
Oak
Porthole frames
About the project
Each floor a step closer to the sea.
Portofino Hotel is a completed hotel in The Heart of Europe, Dubai, with interiors by IAIA. The design reads the building as a journey towards the water. Guests arrive among natural motifs of stone flowers and suspended leaves, climb through an atrium built around a tree, and pass through rooms that grow steadily more maritime before reaching a roof that faces the sea itself.
Each space has its own material key. Pale timber and stone shape the arches and round openings of the all-day dining. In the fifth-floor Italian restaurant, rippled steel ceilings recall the surface of water, blue glass mosaic dresses the bar counters and oak frames the porthole mirrors. Travertine and shell lights give private dining a softer tone. On the roof terrace, shade sails and green walls temper the light around daybeds and tables.
The Portofino Hotel project shows how a hotel interior can hold one story across very different rooms. A lobby, an atrium, all-day dining, an Italian restaurant and a roof terrace each have their own job and their own crowd, from a quick breakfast to a long dinner by the sea. Tying them to a single route towards the water gives guests a reason to move up through the building and use more of it. Natural motifs at arrival, maritime details higher up and open air on the roof make the change gradual rather than abrupt. Stone, timber and steel suit rooms in constant use. The interior architecture is by IAIA.
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