The hotel is located in the outskirts of Xiangyang / Hubei and sits on a small hill within the largest Myrtle Flower Garden throughout Asia.
The design of the hotel was primarily focused on providing a soothing harmony between architecture and its natural environment. Designed to blend into its surrounding typography, the hotel is partially inserted into the slope of the hill and offers a varying appearance depending on ones point of view.
Where else the hotel is read from the north as low to the ground and has a continuity to its surrounding landscape, the complex opens up towards the South introducing the business area to a nearby already existing restaurant by the lake. A dropoff lane wind itself through and underneath the circular volumnes and offers a certain level of urbanity to the hotel's natural surrounding.
The lower zone of the hotel hosts all public areas, which are divided in 3 parts: culinarity, relaxation and business, each represented within one formdifining circle. The lobby stretches between the business and culinarity area combining them to the main public zone of the hotel. Seperated by the dropoff lane, the Spa area gets connected to the Myrtle Tree Park and offeres a more private atmosphere.
The upper part of the hotel accomodates the private areas with 146 guestrooms offering a unique view on the surrounding myrtle tree park. Each circle offers a park with ponds and vegetation in its centre supporting a natural ventilation system throughout the hotel. Being constantly surrounded by the courtyards, the walk to the hotelroom is experienced as a walk through the park, which guides the guests naturally to their room.
Being situated within Myrtle Tree Park, the layer of balkonies serves as a connecting element between the Interior of the Hotel and the vegetation of the park. Smaller Trees growing on and within the facade layer underline the relation between the articial balcony structure and its natural environment.
The facade layer varies in depth, depending on the orientation of the rooms and provide natural lighting for the interior. This variation creates small balkonies on the narrower zones which exend to large terraces on the deeper parts offering a panoramic view to the surrounding typography.
Paying respect to its natural surrounding, the hotel also boasts a variety of sustainable design mechanisms that reduce its environmental impact. The balcony layer with the integrated vegetation offers natural shading and reduces heat gains during the hot summer months.
Every room throughout the hotel is surrounded by the Myrtle Garden on one side and a courtyard on the other, which provides natural air ventilation when needed. Rainwater gets collected on the hotels roof and passed on to the 3 courtyards, where it is stored in tanks and can be used for flushing and irrigating plants.
These sustainable aspects within the nature inspired design result in a harmonic structure which blends into its surrounding and offers its visitors a unique, luxurious and ecological getaway from citylife.
Location: Xiangyang, China Partners: Graft lab & penda Area: 16.800 sq.m Hotel height: 19.8m Room number: 146