OTTAWA – The historic Chateau Laurier Hotel is getting a much needed facelift with the help of Minecraft, a leader in architecture and design.
The proposed revamp would see the 660,000 square foot hotel which first opened its doors in 1912 enter the modern age with the addition of 100 new rooms each comprise of three-dimensional blocks, an engineering marvel of today.
Utilizing Minecraft’s state of the art technology, architects laboured for hours to placing and breaking each grey and beige block comprising of the compelling, pixelated new design.
Lead architect, Chris Ko, has a number of achievements over the course of his Minecraft career, including the highly coveted Pork Chop and Cobblestone awards. ‘Ottawa’, an Ice Plains biome, is said to be one of the more challenging environments for Minecrafters designers.
”I am very proud of our work, and am honoured the Chateau Laurier would entrust us with this project. Prior to this I was working on private homes, such as Adventure Time Palace, so this was a real treat”, said Ko at the unveiling of the new design in Ottawa.
This is the first time that Minecraft has successfully bid to reimagine a historical Canadian landmark. The Company hopes the success of the Fairmont Chateau Laurier will find them working on other Canadian landmarks sorely in need of modernization. Minecraft is said to have bid on the Centre Block renovations, 24 Sussex, and any other historical building within the downtown area.
Critiques of the design are concerned with the sparse interiors. The Chateau Laurier has stated publicly that it hopes to engage interior design firm, The Sims, for the next phase of the project.
