The project is a boutique resort with a construction area of about 26,000 square meters and has 110 rooms. It is located on the Yellow River estuary tourism scenic area, which is in the southeast of Kenli District, Dongying City. The area has exceptional natural resources and is fairly accessible from the Bohai sea coast which is only 700m east of the site. In the area, there is a wetland system composed of a lake and the surrounding integrated river. The Yellow River, the most important cradle of Chinese civilization, flows through 5.464 kilometers and converges into the sea with a large amount of yellow sediment, creating a picturesque scene of “yellow and blue intersection”. Suaeda heterophylla plants spread all over the beach like carpets, forming a unique “Suaeda heterophylla red beach” scenery.
Since the beginning of the project, we have been thinking about how our design should respond to the magnificent natural landscape and profound historical context of the land. We want the building to present a "natural growth" image, in harmony with the environment, not dominating over it. Standing above the basement, we can see the horizontal alluvial plain, the red beach and the sea. We hope the building will stretch harmoniously on the site, giving a sense of strength with its folding lines, while creating a sense of unity and continuity between the building its surrounding environment.
We also wanted the building to embody the Marine character. The slightly upturned roof is like an unfurled gull-wing pointing slightly to the sky, or a docked fishing boat rushing into the ocean. In the colorful natural environment, we hope for the architecture to exhibit a kind of original and unadorned architectural tone, local rather than modern. As a result, we chose the local traditional building materials, such as rubble masonry walls, a rough grain-sensitive paint and wood color plate. Through these earth color materials, the building is humbly merging into the surrounding natural environment.
As a boutique resort hotel, we hope that through the shaping of the architectural space, it will give people a different experience, an escape from the urban seclusion. We hid the drop-off area of the hotel behind a long passage, shaded by a row of trees and cut off from external noise. The lobby and drop-off area are purposely located on the second floor to provide a better view to the distant scenery. Instead of pursuing luxurious styling, the deliberately low-key canopy, pleasant scale of return space and the interpenetration of the scenery wall bring passengers calm feeling about the drop-off area. The interior of the building is interwoven with light and shadow. A double-height atrium space is set in the hotel lobby. Sunlight falls on the floor of the lobby through small square holes arranged in the atrium. In the lobby, you can feel the flow of the day with the swing of the sun. Similar daylighting windows are also used in the banquet lobby to bring in sunlight and create a more pleasurable atmosphere. Multiple courtyards are inserted between the guest rooms and the dining room, in order to isolate the disturbance of the logistics space from the public area and introduce the vibrant green of the courtyard into the building. Facing the lake inside the site, a number of landscape platforms, dining areas and hydrophilic platforms are designed to form good interaction with the landscape.
In this design, we hope to form a positive dialogue between architecture and nature. Through the interweaving of different kinds of spaces, people can feel the integration of architecture and environment with multiple senses such as vision, hearing and touch, which is natural and vivid.