'World's largest' underwater restaurant set to star at luxury Maldives resort
By Kim Megson 14 Mar 2016
The restaurant is currently being fixed to steel pipes 5.8 metres below the surface of a lagoon Credit: Hurawalhi Island Resort & Spa
The developers of a forthcoming luxury resort in the Maldives claim that they have finished constructing the world’s largest underwater restaurant.
The 400-ton megastructure was created over 10 months in New Zealand and Japan and has now been transported to the resort in Lhaviyani Atoll, where it is being fixed to steel piles by divers 5.8 metres below a lagoon.
Guests at the Hurawalhi Island Resort & Spa will enter the restaurant via a spiral staircase from a hut on the jetty, which will contain the kitchen. They can then dine while fish and other sealife swim around their heads and explore the coral below.
“The restaurant has taken a fair amount of ambition, optimism and dedication, and it has taken our contractor even more ingenuity to build it exactly as imagined,” said the resort's general manager Patrick de Staercke. “The result is downright sensational and will be alone worth the trip here.”
Auckland underwater specialists M.J. Murphy were commissioned to design the project following their work on the first underwater restaurant in the Maldives; a smaller structure located at the Conrad Hilton resort.
The new restaurant, which is 18m x 5m in size, was built by New Zealand firm Fitzroy Engineering and Japanese acrylic contractors Nippura, who added the 190mm thick windows. The interiors have been designed by Stuart McKechnie Architects.
The five-star Hurawalh resort – which will feature villas built on stilts over the water – is in the final stages of development and will open later this year. The project is being funded by development company Champalars Holdings Pvt.
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'World's largest' underwater restaurant set to star at luxury Maldives resort
POSTED 14 Mar 2016 . BY Kim Megson
The restaurant is currently being fixed to steel pipes 5.8 metres below the surface of a lagoon Credit: Hurawalhi Island Resort & Spa
The developers of a forthcoming luxury resort in the Maldives claim that they have finished constructing the world’s largest underwater restaurant.
The 400-ton megastructure was created over 10 months in New Zealand and Japan and has now been transported to the resort in Lhaviyani Atoll, where it is being fixed to steel piles by divers 5.8 metres below a lagoon.
Guests at the Hurawalhi Island Resort & Spa will enter the restaurant via a spiral staircase from a hut on the jetty, which will contain the kitchen. They can then dine while fish and other sealife swim around their heads and explore the coral below.
“The restaurant has taken a fair amount of ambition, optimism and dedication, and it has taken our contractor even more ingenuity to build it exactly as imagined,” said the resort's general manager Patrick de Staercke. “The result is downright sensational and will be alone worth the trip here.”
Auckland underwater specialists M.J. Murphy were commissioned to design the project following their work on the first underwater restaurant in the Maldives; a smaller structure located at the Conrad Hilton resort.
The new restaurant, which is 18m x 5m in size, was built by New Zealand firm Fitzroy Engineering and Japanese acrylic contractors Nippura, who added the 190mm thick windows. The interiors have been designed by Stuart McKechnie Architects.
The five-star Hurawalh resort – which will feature villas built on stilts over the water – is in the final stages of development and will open later this year. The project is being funded by development company Champalars Holdings Pvt.
The 400-ton megastructure was created over 10 months in New Zealand and Japan and has now been transported to the resort in Lhaviyani Atoll Credit: Hurawalhi Island Resort & Spa
Auckland underwater design specialists M.J. Murphy were commissioned to design the project following their work on a smaller structure for another Maldives resort
Credit: Hurawalhi Island Resort & Spa
The luxury resort will open later this year, with at least 45 Ocean Pool Villas built on stilts over the water Credit: Hurawalhi Island Resort & Spa
The resort is being funded by development company Champalars Holdings Pvt Ltd
Credit: Hurawalhi Island Resort & Spa
A new study into how we will live, work and relax a century from now has predicted a
future where underwater bubble cities, drone-delivered mobile holiday homes and super
skyscrapers are the norm.
It can only be reached by taking a speedboat over a coral reef and descending a
dramatic three-tier staircase, and was originally opened in 2012 as the world's first
underwater nightclub. Now Poole Associates has redesigned Subsix, the underwater
venue located at the Per Aquum Niyama resort in the Maldives, to become a multi-
functional creative space which can be “transformed into whatever guests imagine it to
be”.
A luxury, multi-million dollar underwater resort will be built off the tropical island of Kuredhivaru in the
Maldives, instead of Dubai as originally planned.
The historic Breakers Hotel in Long Beach, California, is set to reopen in mid-2024 as a
Fairmont Hotels & Resorts property after a significant restoration and redevelopment project.
The Bannatyne Group says it has officially bounced back from the pandemic, with both turnover
and profits restored to pre-2020 levels in 2023, according to its year-end results.
Kerzner International has signed deals to operate two new Siro recovery hotels in Mexico and
Saudi Arabia, following the launch of the inaugural Siro property in Dubai this February.
The US spa industry is continuing its upward trajectory, achieving an unprecedented milestone
with a record-breaking revenue of US$21.3 billion in 2023, surpassing the previous high of
US$20.1 billion in 2022.
Short-term incentives for exercise, such as using daily reminders, rewards or games, can lead
to sustained increases in activity according to new research.