The courtyard at the Three Corners Ocean View Hotel offers a small sanctuary in the heart of the hotel with places to pause, meet, or enjoy a moment alone. Photo: Simon Menges and Nino Tugushi
London and Luxembourg-based practice Bureaux Andrew Phillips' recent renovation of two post-modernist resorts on the Egyptian Riviera presents an architectural dialogue across eras.
We have reached an interesting threshold. Post-modernist buildings are now old enough to renovate. AP approached two late-1990's resorts in El Gouna, Egypt as structures with memory. Their forms, colours and eccentric gestures became clues. The existing vocabulary was the material. The aim was continuity. To let the buildings speak in their own voice and bring them to the standards of contemporary luxury hospitality.
El Gouna’s post-modern language echoes a deeper lineage. Thick walls, arches, courtyards, patterns recall the work of famed Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy. His understanding of climate, enclosure, and human scale offered a quiet logic, helping distinguish what should remain and what should evolve.
The first hotel, the Three Corners Ocean View, originally possessed a strong architectural identity but overly standardized interiors. The guestrooms became the starting point. The move from four stars to five came through order – the geometry of the architecture becoming the geometry of the room. Furniture and fixtures crafted locally. The rooms now carry the clarity of the building and the quiet confidence of place. The corridors were equally reconsidered. Layered wooden screens filter light and views, arches create rhythm, recessed doorways add privacy and carefully placed lighting guides movement. The result is a calm, transitional space with its own character.
Approach by sea to the, recently photographed in December 2025, to the Three Corners Ocean View Hotel, El Gouna, Egypt . This late 90’s renovation of key hotel areas was approached not as a problem to solve, but as structure with a memory. Simon Menges & Nino Tugushi
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Approach by sea to the Three Corners Ocean View hotel. Simon Menges & Nino Tugushi
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The courtyard at the Three Corners Ocean View Hotel offers a small sanctuary in the heart of the hotel with places to pause, meet, or enjoy a moment alone. Simon Menges & Nino Tugushi
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For the corridor at the Three Corners Ocean View Hotel , arches break the length, giving the corridor a rhythm, a sense of intervals. Simon Menges & Nino Tugushi
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For the corridor at the Three Corners Ocean View Hotel , the new design introduced layered wooden screens, a familiar Egyptian vocabulary-simple, porous, regulating light as much as view. Simon Menges & Nino Tugushi
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The guestroom renovation at the Three Corners Ocean View Hotel became the starting point, raising the experience from four stars to five not through ornament, but through order. Simon Menges & Nino Tugushi
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The guestroom renovation at the Three Corners Ocean View Hotel became the starting point, raising the experience from four stars to five not through ornament, but through order. Simon Menges & Nino Tugushi
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The Three Corners Ocean View Hotel’s post-modern vocabulary carries echoes of Hassan Fathy, the highly influential Egyptian architect who reintroduced traditional local building methods and materials in the region. Simon Menges & Nino Tugushi
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The Three Corners Ocean View Hotel in El Gouna , a resort town along Egypt’s Red Sea, has colorful views out to the lagoon. Simon Menges & Nino Tugushi
For this suite of meeting rooms at the Sheraton Mirarmar Resort, the ambition of the re-skin was to recover a sense of identity and presence. A new colour palette, a new carpet and an overall refinishing. Simon Menges & Nino Tugushi
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Every colour the new design for the suite of meeting rooms and restaurant at the Sheraton Mirarmar Resort introduced already existed somewhere else in the hotel, creating a connective thread between the spaces and the building. Simon Menges & Nino Tugushi
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Situated on its own island within the resort’s lagoon is the Orient 1001 Restaurant at the Sheraton Miramar Resort. It is into this pergola-like environment that AP designed a new façade to seamlessly merge with the motifs of the existing Michael Graves architecture whilst improving the climate control of the space. Simon Menges & Nino Tugushi
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Situated on its own island within the resort’s lagoon is the Orient 1001 Restaurant at the Sheraton Miramar Resort. It is into this pergola-like environment that AP designed a new façade to seamlessly merge with the motifs of the existing Michael Graves architecture whilst improving the climate control of the space. Simon Menges & Nino Tugushi
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For the Orient 1001 Restaurant at the Sheraton Miramar Resort AP introduced pivot doors and panels, opening it up to allow breezes to the interior, improving comfort and pleasure throughout the day and night. Simon Menges & Nino Tugushi
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Back to the Three Corners Ocean View Hote l, AP refurbished the hotel night club, Peanuts. including a custom marquee light fixture for the bar composed of 192 locally hand-blown lightbulbs. Simon Menges & Nino Tugushi
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Red Sea House, Egypt. Bureaux Andrew Phillips
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The Red Sea House, Egypt is a four-bedroom “winter palace” made from a grid of domed rooms and deeply shaded outdoor spaces, inspired by the climate-smart logic of Nubian architecture. Bureaux Andrew Phillips
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The courtyard, once only a light well, became the heart of the project – a shaded exterior room organized into smaller spaces to pause, anchored by water, layered planting and varied seating. Peanuts, the hotel nightclub, was reimagined within its existing concrete shell through new finishes, acoustics, and a custom marquee of 192 locally hand-blown bulbs. This renovation established the design direction for the wider resort – AP is now in design development for the remaining public spaces.
The second project, the Sheraton Miramar Resort El Gouna, originally designed by Michael Graves in 1997, combines references to ancient Egyptian, Arabic and Nubian architecture with a distinctly post-modern composition. AP transformed the Orient 1001 Restaurant by redesigning its pavilion façade to improve climate performance while integrating Graves’ language. Pivoting doors open the restaurant to sea breezes, while the new interior creates intimate rooms within rooms that extend naturally onto terraces and gardens.
Continuing this spirit of renovation, the suite of meeting rooms was completely renewed through a refined palette, new finishes, and the inversion of the original chandeliers. Every colour already existed elsewhere in the hotel, creating continuity while giving these spaces a distinct identity.
What began as targeted renovations became a dialogue across eras – bringing together post-modern architecture, Fathy’s enduring intelligence, and contemporary Egypt with renewed clarity.
