Client: Resort World Casino NYC
Location: Jamaica, NY, United States
Completion date: 2016
Artwork budget: $127,000
Project Team
Architect
Paul Athineos
Architects Rule PC
Other
STEPHEN PORCELLI
PARAMOUNT FIXTURE CORP.
Overview
Design a VIP-only room for Resorts World Casino. The high-stakes “Fifth Avenue Club” is a 4,488 square-foot space within a larger casino located at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens. Specifically, we submit our custom designed, Brutalist-inspired sculptural wall panels measuring about 700 square feet.
Goals
Architects Rule was inspired by Andy Warhol's factory, Art Deco's delicate chrome fabric walls and the rugged beauty of Brutalist art and architecture when we undertook the design of sculptural wall panels which introduce both art and architecture to otherwise flat walls. During the design phase, our studio created a model of the panels made from aluminum flashing (purchased at Home Depot) and foam core (Michaels Arts & Crafts). The aluminum was hand cut in our office and we moved modular elements to form a unified whole, refining and rearranging them each day until satisfied with the harmony and texture of the final composition. (Some pieces were hand sanded to create additional surface texture.)
Process
Architects Rule guided the fabricator, Paramount Fixture Corp, and their European craftsman, to insure that design integrity (some rough-hewn surfaces) was maintained through the entire process. As the fabricator produced prototypes, we approved steps along the way to be sure that textures, sizes and positions were maintained following our original sketches and prototypes.
Additional Information
We created under the influence of super sleek Art Deco meets Le Corbusier's Brutalism and Andy Warhol's factory-raw, yet refined but always fun and sexy.To relieve a long, narrow corridor, we created a 3D, sculptural wall that would add architectural interest and turn a tunnel-like corridor into modernist sculpture. Both jutting squares and brushed surfaces add a tactile quality (no fingerprints) to the space and play off the slickness of patent-leather seating, chrome fabric walls and beaded aluminum curtains. Architects Rule sculptural wall exemplifies our firm's founding principles: art architecture = good design.