LTL Architects was selected to design the major in-house dining venue for Aria, the CityCenter's 61-story main casino and condo tower. The design negotiates between the desire for visual openness - views to serving areas and adjacent pool deck - and the need to produce a sense of intimacy within an expansive floor plate. The requirement for an efficient plan with minimal obstructions shifted the focus of the design to the ceiling, where a series of undulating cloud-like canopies migrate across the space, shifting in section to define the dining areas below. Incorporating lighting and acoustical dampening, the canopies allow for spatial articulation of the otherwise open plan, creating a series of semi-enclosed rooms without obstructing view and movement throughout. Banquette seating echoes the cadence of the ceiling to further define these zones while fields of glass cylinders extend cross grain to the canopies. In contrast to the institutional quality of the typical Vegas buffet, the design creates an interior landscape that offers contrasting areas of repose and movement......more