Whereas Silicon Valley rings a bell with most people across the planet, Mountain View usually evokes a puzzling stare if you’re not from Northern California. Mind you, this place actually is the cradle of all things hi-tech. Wedged in between Palo Alto and Sunnyvale, two similarly brainy hubs, the city obviously oozes a strong corporate vibe, but also knows how to blow off steam. Enter The Ameswell Hotel, a new design and technology-oriented independent hotel in the North Whisman area of town. Designed by lauded San Francisco-based interior design practice BAMO, the concept of the 255-room property is all about attainable luxury, aptly fusing the backdrop of California’s unique wilderness and Silicon Valley’s legacy of unconventional thinking, bringing together innovation, art, wellness, sustainability, and last but not least, natural beauty.
An entirely newly built structure, the design aesthetic of The Ameswell Hotel takes cues from NASA‘s nearby Ames Research Center, celebrating the spirit of its namesake through the history and future of innovation, along with an underlying commitment to an elevated lifestyle in which wellness, sustainability and culture are firmly anchored. As such, the property is LEED Silver-certified, and boasts a string of implementations which support this commitment, such as hyper-efficient heating and cooling, solar panels, LED lighting throughout the premises, indigenous plant species, no single use plastic, electric car charging stations, bicycle connections to the surrounding corporate campuses, and the ground floor is home to a permanent art collection curated by Art Advisory Service.
Obviously, each guest room meets all the standards of today’s savvy traveller, but also goes the extra yard with integrated technology and custom touches to remind you that you’re at the global centre of innovation and creativity—a medical-grade air filtration system ensures rooms never share air, and there’s also advanced water filtration, exceptional sound quality, plus organic toiletries by Juice Beauty, and ethically-sourced coffee and tea by Steeped. Centrally located in Silicon Valley with most hi-tech companies, universities, knowledge centres, and even San Francisco International Airport reachable by car within 30 minutes, The Ameswell Hotel has also anticipated its role as the area’s preferred social hub with a number of excellent facilities. No less than three restaurants can be found on the premises, each offering a different cuisine.
Roger is the hotel’s main bar and restaurant with garage-style doors connecting the indoor/outdoor seating featuring seasonal California cuisine fused with Mediterranean flavours along with craft cocktails and wine on tap. Situated in the lobby is the latter’s out-of-the-box little brother Flyby, a casual all day lobby café offering everything from coffee to made-to-order and grab-and-go meals. And last but not least, there’s the Airstream Bar, a retrofitted vintage trailer serving up casual Cali-inspired cuisine intended to enjoy outdoors by the pool, lawn, or fire pits. Mind you, the landscaped garden, there’s two acres of it, features an abundance of indigenous trees, plants, and flowers plays host to a range of cultural programming, such as live music gigs, wellness retreats, winemaker dinner series and tastings, along with guided hikes along the Stevens Creek Trail. The event lawn is covered in life-like astroturf, eliminating the need for excessive watering.
But let’s go back to the bar, shall we? The beverage programme focuses on wines from nearby small producers, while the cocktails feature unique techniques inspired by NASA astronauts. As the first hotel to feature Bear Robotic’s nifty self-driving delivery robot Servi, the restaurants are extremely tech-forward, boasting top of the line kitchen equipment with precise food temperature programming for quality control and technology to reduce food waste, and offering the ease of touchless ordering and payment options through mobile phones. As said, wellness is an element of The Ameswell Hotel concept, and this is captured by a full-fledged Wellness Wing with private spa treatment rooms and ample Fitnesse equipment for personalised workouts, along with access to a 1,600 sq.ft. (149 sqm.) state-of-the-art fitness centre and heated salt water swimming pool.
The Ameswell Hotel
800 Moffett Boulevard (North Whisman)
Mountain View, CA 94043
Telephone: +1 650 8801000
Publishers Note
Just to be clear – superfuture® is a design blog and not a political commentator. No surprise there. The scope of our content has always been global and borderless, however that can often mean covering projects in countries where we will not agree with the politics or actions of those countries. In a world that’s as screwed up as ever right now, the focus of our support is to those designers, architects and other creatives who aim to make the world a more liveable one – as opposed to people that try their hardest to destroy it. So if a project hits our desk and we like it based on its design credentials, we may choose to publish regardless of its location or creators nationality. superfuture® has always been inclusive and hopes for all current wars, aggression, violence, hate and extremism to end.
