When asked to design a luxury hotel and spa at Hersham Golf Club in Surrey (which is within London’s Green Belt) ReardonSmith Architects responded with plans for a subterranean building. Matthew Guy, ReardonSmith’s project designer, explained “Our concept integrates hotel, spa, and golf facilities into a single architecturally exciting and organic composition below and above ground. The design fulfills the requirements of the brief for a bespoke five star hotel while returning hard standing to the Green Belt and improving the physical layout and visual attraction of the entire site. It represents a commercially viable solution to developing in the Green Belt and is, we believe, a world-first.”
More about the hotel after the break.
Blanketed by a plush green roof that mimics the undulating nature of the golf course, the underground rooms are organized around landscaped courtyards, leaving just one level of public area at grade.
Light permeates the rooms by way of the 800m2 garden courtyards, which the rings of rooms are centered around. The entire development is set back from the local residential area and is positioned within an enclave of existing woodland in such a way that it is hidden from local residents’ view.
Both hotel and spa have been designed to minimize their carbon footprint by using combined heat and power generation, heat exchangers and ground source heat pumps, grey water recycling and rain water harvesting.
As seen on Architecture News Plus.
