bruno Archives

Musician Bruno Mars and design studio Yabu Pushelberg have teamed up to create the interiors of a cocktail lounge and live music venue at the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas.

Named The Pinky Ring, the 5,000-square-foot (465-square-metre) lounge is accessible directly from the casino floor, but designed as an entirely separate experience away from the bright lights, bustle and noise.

Bar at The Pinky Ring surrounded by golden drapes — The stone bar at The Pinky Ring is surrounded by golden drapes that are reflected in the mirrored ceiling

Grammy Award-winning artist Mars collaborated with Canadian studio Yabu Pushelberg to craft an elevated and luxurious space within the Bellagio Resort and Casino.

The bar serves a curated collection of cocktails and hosts live entertainment by top musicians and DJs – though no phones are allowed inside.

View from VIP area at The Pinky Ring — A huge crystal chandelier hangs in the centre of the lounge and is visible from all corners

The entry sequence begins with a dimly lit mirrored passageway, where Mars’ collection of Grammy trophies is displayed.

“Inspired by contemporary museum design, the corridor was designed as a soothing and discreet exhibition space where guests can cleanse their visual palette from the outside world and begin to submerge into The Pinky Ring,” said the design team.

VIP area lined with faceted mirrored panels — A VIP area is lined with faceted mirrored panels that create infinite reflections

Guests arrive at the main bar and lounge in front of a sunken conversation pit, wrapped with a wavy banquette and furnished with soft armchairs gathered around a series of small tables.

The carpet, the leather and the velvet chair upholstery are shades of green – colours also found in the richly veined stone tabletops.

Seating area in a niche featuring dark wood-veneer panels — Other niches with additional seating feature dark wood-veneer panels

A giant halo-like chandelier with tiers of glowing crystal hangs from the ceiling above, providing a central focal point that can be seen from every corner.

At the rear of the space is a gently curved, dramatically patterned stone bar, topped with a row of metallic Flowerpot lamps by Verner Panton.

Conversation pit with carpet, chairs and banquettes in various shades of green — In the central conversation pit, various shades of green were chosen for the carpet, chairs and banquettes

The back bar is housed within an elongated pill-shaped, mirrored recess, which displays a wide range of liquor bottles and is ringed with stepped cove lights.

Golden drapes run floor to ceiling across the back wall and are reflected in more mirrors on the ceiling.

Seats and banquette surrounding a table with a richly veined stone top — The green hues of the seating are echoed in the richly veined stone tabletops

Off the main lounge are various niches and VIP areas that offer additional seating, some lined with dark wood-veneer panels.

“See or be seen, each area is composed of its own suave and purpose that echoes into the next,” said the team.

One organically shaped space is lined with faceted, smokey mirrored panels that create infinite reflections, and features a banquette that wraps around a large table fitted with a giant ice bucket for chilling drinks.

An important factor in the design was the lighting, which comprises under-seat and ceiling coves, along with wall lights with five globe-shaped diffusers attached to vertical brass rods.

Patterned crushed velvet and leather banquette — Patterned crushed velvet covers the curved banquette back, while the seat is wrapped in leather

“In the pursuit of perpetual allure, where lighting not only transforms spaces, but perceptions, The Pinky Ring unveils a strategic lighting innovation, schemed to make people look and feel their best,” the team said.

“Through a strategic interplay of low-level, contrast, and accent lighting, The Pinky Ring lighting design unveils the unseen.”

Mars joins a long line of famous musicians to open entertainment venues. Among others is singer Justin Timberlake, who put his name behind an AvroKO-designed Nashville dining and drinking destination in 2021.

Bathroom with a large circular mirror and walls lined in pink-red stone tiles — Pink-red stone tiles across the bathroom walls nod to the lounge’s name

Yabu Pushelberg was founded by George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg in 1980, and the studio has designed some of the most recognisable hospitality interiors over the past four decades.

Shortlisted for Dezeen Awards 2021 design studio of the year and judges for the program in 2023, Yabu Pushelberg’s recent projects include the Moxy and AC Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles – of several they’ve completed for the Moxy brand – and The Londoner hotel on Leicester Square in the UK capital.

The photography is by Sean Davidson.

Reference

designing and drawing ‘one house per day’

Following a year-long exploration of domestic space, architect Andrew Bruno celebrates the completion of his newly published book, ‘One House Per Day.’ Each day for the year of 2020 while living in Brooklyn, Bruno imagined and sketched a new dwelling each day with a compound drawing comprising an isometric, planar, and sectional view. He has now moved to Atlanta on a teaching fellowship while these 365 drawings have been collected together in a comprehensive publication in the order they were drawn, as high-quality 1:1 reproductions. Readers are invited to explore the designer’s year-long investigation, and discover imaginary spaces that range from the familiar to the radical.

The exercise began on social media as a rejection of the single nuclear family program with which the detached house has become synonymous. ‘Even the most architecturally radical houses are typically designed to serve the ends of the single-family patron,’ writes Andrew Bruno in an essay. ‘One House Per Day responds to this arbitrary constraint by imagining over and over how the architectural form of the house might be detached from its association with the monocultural single family.’

photos by designboom, drawings by Andrew Bruno | @one_house_per_day

andrew bruno reimagines domestic space

Andrew Bruno’s One House Per Day proposes a captivating collection of domestic spaces imagined with new and inventive expressions. The concept of the single nuclear family home has long been a general archetype in the realm of residential architecture. It has become increasingly essential to question the relevance of this singular design approach to accommodate the complex and evolving nature of human relationships and societal structures. While this typology has long represented privacy, autonomy, and personal success, it simultaneously poses significant limitations in fostering communal living, adaptability, and sustainability.

Nonetheless, Bruno acknowledges the enduring American desire for suburban living. ‘The desire for a detached house in a suburban landscape is ingrained in American culture,’ Bruno explains, ‘and architects risk consigning themselves to irrelevance if they ignore it.’

‘a collection of rooms divided by arcades with arched openings of varying heights…’

exploration through ritualization

The cover of Andrew Bruno’s One House Per Day showcases 365 indented circles to symbolize the 365 houses, providing the book with a distinctive tactile quality. Printed on on grey recycled paper, each drawing is allocated a full page followed by an index containing a brief and description.

The publication contains a forward by Keith Krumwiede, contributions by Malcolm Rio, Alessandro Orsini and Nick Roseboro, along with a section listing ‘One Sentence Per Day,’ by architect and author Clark Thenhaus — who explores Bruno’s ‘ritualized’ process of creation by embarking on a journal of daily reflections. The book concludes with a short essay in which Bruno examines the role of the detached house in American culture from social, political, and economic viewpoints.

‘a cylindrical volume sliced to create four rooms with sloped ceilings, punctuated by tree-filled voids’

‘two long and narrow gabled volumes separated by a wide tree-filled yard…’

‘composed of a series of voids carved from a vaulted solid’
‘a collection of separate circular rooms of different sizes and opacities under one large canted circular roof’