Sky Yards Hotel

Located in a small, rural town in central China, this complex consists of 48 hotel rooms, restaurant with independent circulation, banquet hall, swimming pools, underground parking and spaces preserved for later phase development. Surrounded by unfinished building site, wasted land and industrial sites, this project is definitely not blessed with a beautiful site. The site area, construction budget and time are also incredibly tight and limited. Fortunately, Taihang Mountain is still visible from the site.
Usually a hotel room would be designed as an outward box to maximize the view. As a consequence, the hotel building would be a collection of boxes. We rejected this conventional model and reinvented the actual experience in a typical unit: first, the exterior view below eye-level is blocked; then the opening is “lifted” or enlarged to invite more light and wind; at last, the full-size glass door divided the unit into a combination of interior room and exterior micro courtyard, with a visually continuous experience of the scroll-like view of the sky and the mountain.
The lawn in front of the building is also “lifted” to provide sloped paths for entrance, and form abstract image of mountains, echoing the view of the real mountain farther away. At the same time, mass balance is also reached by the reuse of the excavated masses. Looking out from the first floor, the transparent glass windows surrounded by translucent glass frame the view of the front yard and the mountain far away.
Using a very simple and consistent method, we invented a “room + micro-yard” model for hotel design, and transformed the disadvantage of the site into a private, nuanced, and distinctive experience. Devoid of superficial visual elements of Chinese or local culture, Sky Yards evokes the traditional Chinese garden making methodology of concealing and revealing.

PROJECT LEADER: Xiaomeng Xu
ARCHITECTURE DESIGN: Xiaomeng Xu, Chun Wang
INTERIOR DESIGN: Xiaomeng Xu, Hannah Wang
GRAPHIC DESIGN: Xiaomeng Xu, Hannah Wang
STRUCTURAL CONSULTANT: AND Office
CONSTRUCTION DOCUMENT (ARCHITECTURE): Henan Urban & Rural Design Institute
CONTRACTOR (ARCHITECTURE): Local team
CONSTRUCTION DOCUMENT (FINISHING & LANDSCAPE): Henan Jutailong Decoration and Construction Co. Ltd.
CONTRACTOR (FINISHING & LANDSCAPE): Henan Jutailong Decoration and Construction Co. Ltd.

Sky Yards Hotel by Xiaomeng Xu in China won the WA Award Cycle 37. Please find below the WA Award poster for this project.