Located in Shanghai World Expo Park, YUAN Hotel focuses on urban vacation. Although it is called vacation, it’s based on business model. As the economic center of China, holiday hotel is not a good choice in terms of human environment and natural conditions. However, with the improvement of economic conditions, young people have higher requirements for the living environment, especially in the spiritual level, as a result, YUAN Hotel has achieved this goal.
According to the design task, there are 100 guest rooms in the main building and the 20 guest rooms in the annex building. The rest of the functional spaces need to be rebuilt, such as the reception hall, tea house, restaurant, kitchen and so on. At the beginning of the design, they did underestimate the difficulty of this project, and with the deepening of the design, their team constantly overcame obstacles from different specialized fields, such as small-scale planning, architectural design, architectural transformation, interior design, landscape design, etc. sometimes they even take part in some public relations work. After a period of running this project, they identified two clear design directions, rational design and perceptual design. I remembered that the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius proposed three principles of architecture, namely, practicality, sturdiness and aesthetics. According to current situation we mentioned, none of them are available. To some extent, all design work should be started with rationality. Such as the replacement of doors and windows, structural reinforcement, roof waterproofing, and the positioning of basic facilities, etc., There tasks are very specific and complex, but each can not be avoided. I won’t repeat them here. In short, it is necessary to be practical and solid. The perceptual aspect is more complex. In fact, the design itself is meaningless, but the design lacks soul if we just stay completely at the technical level. How to endow the hotel with soul is the challenge of this design. Two years ago, I was deeply inspired by Mr. Tong Jun’s Jiang zhi. Of course, this may only be the designer’s intuition. Perhaps it is a mistake of time that the layout of this design just conforms to the characteristic of traditional garden. Pavilion, platform, building and loft have become reception halls, tearooms, guest rooms and restaurant in the plan. However, connected by corridors, the winding paths lead to seclusion, the entrance is restrained first and then raised. In addition, it is decorated by water, trees, mountains and stones, which seems to become a picture of contemporary Jiangnan gardens. Garden has become the key of this design by accident. The whole hotel is centered around the garden and gives full play to the advantages of gardening within the scope of technology. Between tradition and modernity, between sensibility and rationality, there is a constant dissociation and collision. There are successes and failures in the process of design, but the most important thing is to let us regain our confidence in reviving traditional culture. Perhaps this is a greater harvest than hotel design, and it is also the driving force of their future design work.
