Designing For Tourism The Imprint By MVRDV

Tourism is the lifeblood for many major cities, and in the digital age, the pressure is on to deliver memorable experiences worth travelling for. It’s already been all over the internet, but we couldn’t help but hold up The Imprint for further inspection. It’s really the perfect case in point!

Designed by MVRDV it’s part of the Paradise City complex of six buildings, which will provide a full suite of entertainment and hotel attractions less than a kilometre from South Korea’s largest airport. Given the proposed programme of the two buildings – a nightclub and indoor theme park – the client required a design with no windows, yet one that still integrated with the other buildings in the complex.

The design of The Imprint arises from the simple question: Can we design an expressive façade that connects with its surroundings even though it has no windows? Here, neighbouring buildings are ‘draped’ over simple structural forms and plazas, almost like shadows, and ‘imprinted’ as a relief pattern onto the façades.

The golden spot is the project’s most obvious and attentiongrabbing element, even catching the eyes of airline passengers landing at nearby Incheon Airport. The golden hue is achieved using gold paint, and is reinforced by the lighting of the façades at night: while the majority of the surface is lit from below, the gold spot is highlighted from above.

“The virgin building has received a splash of gold. This makes it as if the entrance is illuminated at night by a ray of sunlight,” says MVRDV’s Winy Maas, principal and co-founder.