'World's largest' underwater restaurant set to star at luxury Maldives resort
POSTED 14 Mar 2016 . BY Kim Megson
The restaurant is currently being fixed to steel pipes 5.8 metres below the surface of a lagoon Credit: Hurawalhi Island Resort & Spa
The developers of a forthcoming luxury resort in the Maldives claim that they have finished constructing the world’s largest underwater restaurant.
The 400-ton megastructure was created over 10 months in New Zealand and Japan and has now been transported to the resort in Lhaviyani Atoll, where it is being fixed to steel piles by divers 5.8 metres below a lagoon.
Guests at the Hurawalhi Island Resort & Spa will enter the restaurant via a spiral staircase from a hut on the jetty, which will contain the kitchen. They can then dine while fish and other sealife swim around their heads and explore the coral below.
“The restaurant has taken a fair amount of ambition, optimism and dedication, and it has taken our contractor even more ingenuity to build it exactly as imagined,” said the resort's general manager Patrick de Staercke. “The result is downright sensational and will be alone worth the trip here.”
Auckland underwater specialists M.J. Murphy were commissioned to design the project following their work on the first underwater restaurant in the Maldives; a smaller structure located at the Conrad Hilton resort.
The new restaurant, which is 18m x 5m in size, was built by New Zealand firm Fitzroy Engineering and Japanese acrylic contractors Nippura, who added the 190mm thick windows. The interiors have been designed by Stuart McKechnie Architects.
The five-star Hurawalh resort – which will feature villas built on stilts over the water – is in the final stages of development and will open later this year. The project is being funded by development company Champalars Holdings Pvt.
The 400-ton megastructure was created over 10 months in New Zealand and Japan and has now been transported to the resort in Lhaviyani Atoll Credit: Hurawalhi Island Resort & Spa
Auckland underwater design specialists M.J. Murphy were commissioned to design the project following their work on a smaller structure for another Maldives resort
Credit: Hurawalhi Island Resort & Spa
The luxury resort will open later this year, with at least 45 Ocean Pool Villas built on stilts over the water Credit: Hurawalhi Island Resort & Spa
The resort is being funded by development company Champalars Holdings Pvt Ltd
Credit: Hurawalhi Island Resort & Spa
Numbers from the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, (ALVA) show that Royal attractions
saw a huge increase in visitor numbers during 2023 – the coronation year of King Charles III.
Off the back of the success of the first round of Everyday Heritage Grants in 2022, Historic
England is funding 56 creative projects that honour the heritage of working-class England.
Universal has revealed it will be adding new Harry Potter attractions, alongside Super Nintendo
and How to Train Your Dragon worlds to its Florida resort.
Cruise Ship Interiors (CSI) invites cruise lines, shipyards, design studios, outfitters,
and suppliers to take part in CSI Design Expo Americas in Miami, Florida, the region’s only
event dedicated to cruise ship interior design. [more...]
'World's largest' underwater restaurant set to star at luxury Maldives resort
POSTED 14 Mar 2016 . BY Kim Megson
The restaurant is currently being fixed to steel pipes 5.8 metres below the surface of a lagoon Credit: Hurawalhi Island Resort & Spa
The developers of a forthcoming luxury resort in the Maldives claim that they have finished constructing the world’s largest underwater restaurant.
The 400-ton megastructure was created over 10 months in New Zealand and Japan and has now been transported to the resort in Lhaviyani Atoll, where it is being fixed to steel piles by divers 5.8 metres below a lagoon.
Guests at the Hurawalhi Island Resort & Spa will enter the restaurant via a spiral staircase from a hut on the jetty, which will contain the kitchen. They can then dine while fish and other sealife swim around their heads and explore the coral below.
“The restaurant has taken a fair amount of ambition, optimism and dedication, and it has taken our contractor even more ingenuity to build it exactly as imagined,” said the resort's general manager Patrick de Staercke. “The result is downright sensational and will be alone worth the trip here.”
Auckland underwater specialists M.J. Murphy were commissioned to design the project following their work on the first underwater restaurant in the Maldives; a smaller structure located at the Conrad Hilton resort.
The new restaurant, which is 18m x 5m in size, was built by New Zealand firm Fitzroy Engineering and Japanese acrylic contractors Nippura, who added the 190mm thick windows. The interiors have been designed by Stuart McKechnie Architects.
The five-star Hurawalh resort – which will feature villas built on stilts over the water – is in the final stages of development and will open later this year. The project is being funded by development company Champalars Holdings Pvt.
The 400-ton megastructure was created over 10 months in New Zealand and Japan and has now been transported to the resort in Lhaviyani Atoll Credit: Hurawalhi Island Resort & Spa
Auckland underwater design specialists M.J. Murphy were commissioned to design the project following their work on a smaller structure for another Maldives resort
Credit: Hurawalhi Island Resort & Spa
The luxury resort will open later this year, with at least 45 Ocean Pool Villas built on stilts over the water Credit: Hurawalhi Island Resort & Spa
The resort is being funded by development company Champalars Holdings Pvt Ltd
Credit: Hurawalhi Island Resort & Spa
A new study into how we will live, work and relax a century from now has predicted a
future where underwater bubble cities, drone-delivered mobile holiday homes and super
skyscrapers are the norm.
It can only be reached by taking a speedboat over a coral reef and descending a
dramatic three-tier staircase, and was originally opened in 2012 as the world's first
underwater nightclub. Now Poole Associates has redesigned Subsix, the underwater
venue located at the Per Aquum Niyama resort in the Maldives, to become a multi-
functional creative space which can be “transformed into whatever guests imagine it to
be”.
A luxury, multi-million dollar underwater resort will be built off the tropical island of Kuredhivaru in the
Maldives, instead of Dubai as originally planned.
Numbers from the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, (ALVA) show that Royal attractions
saw a huge increase in visitor numbers during 2023 – the coronation year of King Charles III.
Off the back of the success of the first round of Everyday Heritage Grants in 2022, Historic
England is funding 56 creative projects that honour the heritage of working-class England.
Universal has revealed it will be adding new Harry Potter attractions, alongside Super Nintendo
and How to Train Your Dragon worlds to its Florida resort.
Cruise Ship Interiors (CSI) invites cruise lines, shipyards, design studios, outfitters,
and suppliers to take part in CSI Design Expo Americas in Miami, Florida, the region’s only
event dedicated to cruise ship interior design. [more...]