Text description provided by the architects. This is one of 6 hotels in a group that occupies a formal rural village, turning it into one of the well sort after tourist destinations in the province of Hunan. The hotel is named after a big knoll Which the site is adjacent to. Part of the site is a terraced slope that was meant for drying the harvested crop from the beautiful field in front.
The 8 cabins Of the Lion’s Den Hotel sits on that slope. Annexed to it is the main building that occupies the narrow pathway beside, housing the restaurant and the front counter.
The design philosophy of this design is to touch the land lightly, both structurally and visually at the same time. The architecture embraces while the interior engages the nature around.
The main building consists of 3 sections interlocking with one another to create an open but covered structure, “hovering” lightly above the ground. The weathered copper sheet is used for the roofing to emulate the different shades of green and brown found on the vegetation in the surroundings. The shape of the building’s front is also an abstract of a male lion with its full mane protecting the dens (the cabins) behind.
The cabins are designed to “float” on the slope as well. All cabins come with a standard front balcony and an extended rear garden of various depths beyond the bathrooms. The cabins are finished in recycled wood and have light reflectors around the entire roofs to illuminate the tight in-between spaces, eliminating any dark spots and corners within the cluster. Aesthetically, the cabins were also finished on all exposed faces, including the roofs and the undersides.
The interior of each cabin is divided by fully collapsible fold-and-slide glass doors to enable an unobstructed views of the beautiful scenery outside. The bathrooms are connected to the trellis-covered rear gardens, allowing users to experience the proximity to nature with total seclusion.
The cabins were also located at different angles with one another, and together with the difference in their elevations, privacy is ensured even with opened doors.
