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Architects: OAD
- Area: 3000 m²
- Year: 2020
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Photographs:Arch-Exist
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Lead Architect: Eric Lee
Overview
The project, which was a factory left over from theThird-line Construction at the beginning of Reform and Opening-up, is located in the deep mountains of Wushan Town, Dayi County, Chengdu. In order to meet the demands of the owners, we transformed it into a boutique hotel. The renovated hotel has 21 guestrooms with a construction area of 3,000 square meters, including all-day dining restaurant, cafe, bar, multi-function hall, meeting room, chess and card rooms, outdoor hot springs, landscape swimming pool and other supporting entertainment facilities.
Strategy
The original site of the project (the No. 6569 old military factory and the Liang he kou Power Station) was the time mark of the Third-line Construction period in 1979, which was a turning point in the history of "New China", heralding the beginning of a new journey and the end of the past era. “Hotel 1979” is not a regular hotel, but a spatial container that takes industrial architecture as the core to experience life aesthetics. Therefore, our design concept was generated from the encounter between the old and the new in 1979 as the watershed of the times, and focus entirely on the opposition and fusion between the old and the new, and finally form the design concept of "old scenes-new experience", that is, sorting out the industrial features and fragmentary beauty of the original buildings, and using contemporary design to collide with them, to produce a new experience scene. Specifically, this is like the popular Sichuan double-flavor hot pot. The encounter between the plain broth and the spicy broth is the collision and excitation of the old and new flavors, promoting and achieving each other.
In Hotel 1979, the old and new buildings "encountering in contrast". The past and the present are not separated, but exist in comparison and form different notes. "Hotel 1979" aims to provide a spiritual habitat for people who travel far from the city. Therefore, in the design process, we fully considered the surrounding landscape and mountain features. In the creation of the scene, we are more inclined to express the hotel's integration and disappearance in nature, emphasizing the delicate spacial experience of the building rather than simple appearance appreciation, and finally reach the realm of "accommodate body and free the mind".
Layout
The layout of the hotel is mainly divided into three main areas, including the specialty lobby bar and factory loft area, guest room area, and multifunctional supporting area. The original space where the specialty lobby bar located is the assembly workshop of the Institute of Optoelectronics Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which was built in 1970. In order to reflect the unique era background and cultural attributes of the original space, we preserved the architectural form and temperament of the original factory as much as possible, and perfectly integrated the original industrial style and modern elements. For material selection, we also adopted materials with strong contrast, and finally realized the perfect combination of glass and metal with the original red brick structure.
As the visual focus of the hotel and the beginning of the space system, the lobby is connected to the main entrance of the hotel, and displayed the hotel’s characteristics. The design of the hallway uses arched metal door frames and decorative lights to give it an industrial temperament. Bare structure, mottled walls, faded dome... In order to let the guests appreciate the beauty of old building, the overall design of the lobby adopts the style of wabi-sabi originated from Japan, adding a melancholy and nostalgic texture to the overall spatial atmosphere. The entire lobby is composed of several spaces, with chat area, reception area, and reading area set up in sequence.
In addition to the excellent natural environment, in order to allow the guests completely relax and entertain their body and mind, we created four different social spaces in the multifunctional supporting area of the hotel, namely the restaurant area, the leisure plank road area, the landscape swimming pool area and the bar area.
As part of the newly built space, the overall design of the restaurant has a strong sense of visual impact. Its design is inspired by the mechanical gears in the old factory building. A dynamic picture is finally presented by designers through the refinement and transformation of mechanical elements such as gears and bearings. Viewed from a distance, these "randomly spliced" buildings are like machines rotating at high speed, lying quietly in a silent valley. In material selection of restaurant, the designer made full use of bright and transparent glass as well as textured metal aluminum panels. The application of large-area floor-to-ceiling windows and skylights introduces the surrounding mountain scenery into the room, forming a "space frame", to ensures that the guests can enjoy a visual "feast" while savoring local special food.
The leisure plank road outside the restaurant is hidden under the forest. As the hotel's water landscape, the design combines natural elements and considers sociality and water-oriented. It provides commercial service functions such as leisure and entertainment, business meetings, and family gatherings to the guests, while they enjoying the riverside landscape.
The swimming pool located deep in the valley is the core landscape of the hotel, which is transformed from the old drainage pool. In addition to considering its functionality and safety, the design also deliberately creates the illusion that the building is floating on the water like a box. People can watch the surrounding lush plants and mountains in the pool, and feel a resort experience different from that of a city hotel. The bar is transformed from an old power generation workshop, holding multiple functions such as coffee, chess and card room. Meanwhile, it is also the hotel's "museum", displaying the old machines from the factory. Visitors can experience the rarely known history of China's "Three-line Construction" and understand its evolution.
The guest rooms locate around the swimming pool and are distributed in different directions. According to different natural landscapes and design features, the guest rooms are divided into different types: hillside villa, loft family suite, mountain-view suite, garden-view suite, historical suite, pool double room. Considering rainfall throughout the year in Dayi area, most of the guest rooms adopt a sloped roof structure, which not only satisfies the practical function, but also echoes the rolling hills, while truly blending into nature. .
The Loft mountain-view room is designed from the original factory’s restaurant space. A large area of glass curtain wall is set up on the façade of the building, which forms a contrast of density and reality with the adjacent guest rooms. Outside the window is a spacious terrace. Whether indoors or outdoors, the surrounding mountains scenery makes people forget the limitations and restrictions of space. The facade of the garden-view suite deliberately retains the color and texture of the old red bricks, and uses steel and glass elements to harmonize with red bricks as the main tone. The tree house rooms are ingeniously integrated with the natural mountain view, creating a peaceful atmosphere of retreat to the countryside.
Conclusion
For us, this is a quite meaningful industrial building renovation project. We finally created a soulful and live "arcadia" for tourists in deep mountain, a holiday resort gifted by nature. Here, the concept of vacation is redefined; here, cultural heritage and design techniques are perfectly integrated; here, the old scenes and new experiences are sublimated; here, all the good things are destined to happen, and all we do is making them naturally meet.
