This book features the design details of the largest and most innovative examples from such cutting-edge firms as Archi-Tectonics, ARO, Escher GuneWardena, and Office dA, among others. Its pages offer ...
Michael Hong is grabbing big-ticket work from architectural giants.
By Mary Scoviak
If you had just launched your own architecture practice and clients offered you multi-billion dollar commissions from Las Vegas to Nassau, would you say no? Michael Hong did - twice. "I didn't see how I could handle projects of this scope. My ‘firm' consisted of me and a graduate student working on a consulting basis. We didn't even have a proper office; we were working out of my house," says Hong.
Persistence bested Hong's reservations. He launched Michael Hong Associates (mha) in 2004 with Las Vegas legend Steve Wynn's $2.2 billion Encore Suites project and the Caribbean's largest single-phase resort development, Baha Mar Resort, on his drawing boards.
Although mha is a start-up, Hong is a known quantity. His relationship with Wynn began in the mid-1990s when Hong was a 34-year-old project designer with Jerde Partnership in Venice, Calif. Wynn had approached world-renowned "experience architect" Jon Jerde with an idea that would knock the themed kitsch out of Las Vegas. Hong "got it," immersed himself in classical Italian architecture and presented Wynn with the luxurious, villa-inspired 3,993-room/suite Bellagio Las Vegas (ranked as one of the world's most profitable hotels).
Over the next 14 years, Hong's "strong sensitivity to good design and taste" established him as a major contributor to Wynn's exterior architectural evolution, according to Deruyter Butler, executive vp, Wynn Design & Development, Las Vegas. "Mike can solve the most complicated, unusual aesthetic problems. He brings innovative concepts to a very competitive marketplace."
Hong's 19 years with Jerde proved he could coax elegant order out of multi-use chaos across asset classes, including Salt Lake City's 3.2 million-square-foot retail/business Gateway district, and around the world with headline projects such as Wynn's $1.6 billion Bellagio Resort in Las Vegas. So it was no surprise that when Hong launched his own firm in 2004, mha was Wynn's first choice for the 2.2 million-square-foot, multi-billion-dollar Encore Suites casino/hotel/entertainment complex slated for a December debut on the Las Vegas Strip.
Encore's complexity makes it an ideal "first project" to showcase mha's strengths. Not only does the exterior architecture have to live up to the luxury standards of the neighboring Wynn Las Vegas (the world's only casino resort with both a Mobil Five Star and AAA Five Diamond rating), but it also has to unify diverse, distinct destinations: seven dining outlets, 2,034 luxury suites, 64,000 square feet of casino space, 80,000 square feet of meeting and convention space, plus entertainment venues, a salon and spa, a nightclub and various pools.