Hospitality Design - September 2019 - 102

beyond hospitality sustainable design

MARGOT KRASOJEVIC
Founder
Margot Krasojevic Architecture
After seeing English architect Sir Peter
Cook give a lecture when she was 16 years
old, Margot Krasojevic knew instantly she
wanted to be a part of this exchange of ideas.
With a Ph.D in architectural theory, she's
worked for Zaha Hadid, NOX, and Michael
Squire and Partners before founding her
own design and research office in London
and Beijing in 1998. Her high-concept,
sustainably focused work is futuristic and
experimental in scope while also serving
a larger purpose. By figuring out how to
harness the planet's limited resources,
Krasojevic is developing projects that
ultimately help the greater good.

Renewable Resources

Krasojevic says eco-conscious design is
not about "slapping a few wind turbines
or recycling bins onto the scheme as a
polite afterthought," but about "bringing
sustainability and renewable energy to
the forefront." Take the Lighthouse hotel.
Located off the coast of mainland South
Korea near the island of Jeju, the hotel's
renewable energy is harnessed as part
of the building's infrastructure "creating
power to keep it running year-round and

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September 2019 hospitalitydesign.com

A rendering of the Harmonic Turbine Hotel in
China, which uses the tides to generate electricity
so ,

return surplus energy into the grid," she says,
"contributing to the environment by producing
usable energy for the surrounding area."

Celebration of Life

The proposed design for the EcoCrematorium in Santa Monica is one of
Margot's most ambitious projects yet.
Designed as an open outdoor event space, the
concept's parabolic reflectors surround the
crematorium chamber and can be angled to
obtain the strongest solar concentration to
cremate a body. The garden of remembrance
wraps around the crematorium and is
made from undulating sections of rubber
embedded with LED lights to create the
landscape, while lighting equipment projects
holographs and caters to the ceremonial
event of cremation. Ashes can take on
multiple roles, whether added to a firework
as part of an illuminated display or to
concrete to form an ocean reef. In addition,
a magnet will collect metals from the ashes,
which are then recycled and reused for

aircrafts and cars. "Death is a part of life [and
is] sometimes overlooked in architecture,"
she says. "As technology evolves, it has given
us options outside of the general rituals [we
have come to know]."

A New Voice

"Architecture is a subservient discipline
and is shifting far too slowly," Krasojevic
says, "but I have never been scared of
asking questions. I don't fear ignorance,
only apathy and indifference." Too much
emphasis is placed on "keeping monuments
on display to uphold an identity while people
are struggling to survive," she says. In its
place, she wants eco-forward architecture
to be woven into society's everyday life. "We
belong to an ever-changing and high-speed
world where we not only adapt faster, but
also are more fearless in our choices," she
says. "We need to start thinking out of the
box, and for this to happen, architects need
to work with other disciplines so as not to
regenerate the obsolete."
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