Floating Hotel by MORE Tops Out — Close
In mountainous Anji, a rural hideout three hours from Shanghai, MORE Architecture designed a boutique hotel floating between the hills. The structure topped out in the midst of the bamboo forest.
Anji is a hilly and bamboo rich county, consisting of an urban centre and a dozen villages around it. The region is the green heart of the most urbanized area in the world: the Yangtze River Delta. It has around eighty million urban residents – similar to the total population of Germany – within a radius of three hours.
Tourism is currently one of the biggest drivers of rural China. After nearly four decades of industrialization and urbanization, the massive Chinese middle class has time and money to spend: the ultimate preconditions for tourism. Chinese people flee their megacities on the weekend and are attracted by rural life.
The floating hotel will be the first building in the rocky area of Dachangping, in the south of rural Anji. It will serve as a space for weddings and events. ‘We used the traditional idea of the large roof that brings people together’, explains architect Daan Roggeveen. Below this folded roof, the architects created four different areas: a lobby, a yoga space, a restaurant and an event space for weddings and the like, overlooking a dramatic gorge. Visitors move from one to another area through the outdoors, to let them engage with nature and the surroundings all the time.
The eighteen rooms of the hotel sit below the main functions. There are three different room types in the hotel – single loaded, double loaded and rooms at the corners. Some rooms are extremely wide, others extremely long with windows on both sides. The outdoor corridor meanders along the rooms. ‘We wanted to play with the idea of the hotel room, and create unique places on such a special location’, says Roggeveen.
Steel columns elevate the hotel eight meter above the mountain. The swimming pool sits hidden in the mountain, with the hotel hovering above.
Expected opening of the hotel: Summer 2020.
In mountainous Anji, a rural hideout three hours from Shanghai, MORE Architecture designed a boutique hotel floating between the hills. The structure topped out in the midst of the bamboo forest.
Anji is a hilly and bamboo rich county, consisting of an urban centre and a dozen villages around it. The region is the green heart of the most urbanized area in the world: the Yangtze River Delta. It has around eighty million urban residents – similar to the total population of Germany – within a radius of three hours.
Tourism is currently one of the biggest drivers of rural China. After nearly four decades of industrialization and urbanization, the massive Chinese middle class has time and money to spend: the ultimate preconditions for tourism. Chinese people flee their megacities on the weekend and are attracted by rural life.
The floating hotel will be the first building in the rocky area of Dachangping, in the south of rural Anji. It will serve as a space for weddings and events. ‘We used the traditional idea of the large roof that brings people together’, explains architect Daan Roggeveen. Below this folded roof, the architects created four different areas: a lobby, a yoga space, a restaurant and an event space for weddings and the like, overlooking a dramatic gorge. Visitors move from one to another area through the outdoors, to let them engage with nature and the surroundings all the time.
The eighteen rooms of the hotel sit below the main functions. There are three different room types in the hotel – single loaded, double loaded and rooms at the corners. Some rooms are extremely wide, others extremely long with windows on both sides. The outdoor corridor meanders along the rooms. ‘We wanted to play with the idea of the hotel room, and create unique places on such a special location’, says Roggeveen.
Steel columns elevate the hotel eight meter above the mountain. The swimming pool sits hidden in the mountain, with the hotel hovering above.
Expected opening of the hotel: Summer 2020.
