The Aria Resort & Casino, which is the tallest structure in CityCenter, Las Vegas’ new 67-acre urban centre, is the first hotel-casino designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects. The 60-storey two curvilinear glass towers houses 4,004 rooms, including 568 suites, totalling 4,000,000 square feet.
ARIA Resort & Casino has been selected for a 2010 American Architecture Award. The design awards program, organized by the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies, honours new and cutting edge design for projects designed and built in the US by American and international architecture firms.
ARIA Resort & Casino has been designed to redefine the Las Vegas skyline. The 3.8 million square feet hotel-casino complex features spacious guest rooms and light-filled corridors offering panoramic views of the Las Vegas Strip below and the surrounding mountains beyond. The project includes a 150,000 square feet casino, 16 restaurants, 10 bars and lounges, shops, a three-level conference centre, a two-level spa building, a 215,000 square feet pool deck, and a 1,800-seat theatre for Cirque du Soleil. ARIA also includes works by renowned artists Maya Lin, Jenny Holzer, and Tony Cragg.
City Center is considered as the largest privately financed development in the history of the US and is also the largest LEED-Certified project in the world. Consistent with CityCenter’s scale, ARIA is the world’s largest hotel to achieve a LEED Gold rating. Continuing Pelli Clarke Pelli’s innovations in sustainable design, green technologies used in ARIA will result in a 30% improvement in energy efficiency and an estimated savings of 31 million gallons of water each year.
A jury selected the winning projects from more than 1,000 entries. CityCenter, which also houses Mandarin Oriental, Las Vegas; the Crystals retail and entertainment district; Vdara Hotel & Spa; The Harmon Hotel; and Veer Towers, is also an award recipient. An exhibition of the winning projects begins from 4 November 2010 at ‘The City and the World: Madrid Symposium’ before travelling to Athens and Istanbul.