Resorts
LOWES BEACH HOTEL
Strategic Hotels Group
Santa Monica, California
Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel is a beachfront resort overlooking the Pacific Ocean. With a view of the iconic Santa Monica Pier and close proximity to Third Street Promenade, this city resort blends a casual beach feeling with the energy of Santa Monica. The WHITIN DESIGN WORKS' renovation reimaged the hotel using a low cost and low water requiring landscape along Ocean Avenue, the porte-cochere and pool deck.
This is Phase 1 of the master plan to renovate the hotel. The existing landscape along Ocean Avenue had become over grown and lost its seaside charm. The new landscape emphasizes the 600 foot building frontage along Ocean Avenue with a linear, layered and low water requiring design and plant palette. The geometric design emphasizes plant color, seasonal and texture combinations. Vertical plants such as Cupresses sempervirens and existing Phoenix canariensis are offset in gravel, succulent groundcovers and blocks of drought tolerant flowering shrubs. The border around the existing porte cochere fountain is replanted with custom designed succulent balls suggesting water bubbles. The pool deck renovation, limited by existing over structure weight restrictions and the need to preserve unobstructed Pacific Ocean views, focuses on over scaled tree planters and replanting of existing planters with succulents.
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