Mega-Inventor Chuck Hoberman Creates A Kinetic Canopy For Filtering The Sun’s Rays

The man behind the famous Hoberman sphere creates a responsive architectural shell for a spa in Riyadh.

You know how you’re watching The Travel Channel, and you get sucked into some top 10 list of hotel spas around the world (that’s actually an all-day marathon of top 10 hotel spa programming), and you wonder if you could possibly ever afford that decadence? That feeling is only about to get worse, because a pair of luxurious spas in Riyadh will soon put to shame your dreams of hot-stone massages in some nicely tiled room.

The KAFD Portal Spas, by the architectural firm WORKSBUREAU, are a duo of diaphanous, polygonal structures–one for men, one for women–that are going to raise the bar on decadence. Because between services, pampered patrons will make their way through meadowlike gardens growing within the building–a three-story tower of life within a massive, light-flooded atrium. Indeed, while they’re called “spas,” the buildings may be the most striking greenhouses you’ve ever seen.

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