Atkins has won an international competition to design a resort hotel which is going to be built in a 100 meter deep quarry in the Songjiang district near to Shanghai in China.
Although from these pictures the hotel looks almost unreal, the project is expected to be completed by May, 2009.
The quarry will protect the resort from the weather and reduce the energy needs of the hotel. The complex will contain restaurants, cafes, sport facilities, and will even include underwater public areas and guestrooms.
The hotel will have 400 bed resort which will stand two levels higher than the rock face of the 100 metre deep quarry.
Two underwater levels will house a restaurant and guestrooms facing a ten-metre deep aquarium. The lowest level of the hotel will contain a leisure complex with a swimming pool and water-based sports.
An extreme sports centre for activities such as rock climbing and bungee jumping will be cantilevered over the quarry and accessed by special lifts from the water level of the hotel.
Martin Jochman, the chief in design team, says “We drew our inspiration from the quarry setting itself, adopting the image of a green hill cascading down the natural rock face as a series of terraced landscaped hanging gardens. In the centre, we have created a transparentglass ‘waterfall’ from a central vertical circulation atrium connectingthe quarry base with the ground level. This replicates the natural waterfalls on the existing quarry face.”
If you enjoyed this design, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
