Gold Hospitality, Recreation, Travel and Tourism Design · 2024
Dhawa Jinan Daming Lake Resort Hotel
by Muchuan Xu, Shangzhao Yang and Minxi Cai
- A' Design Award 2024 Gold Winner in Hospitality, Recreation, Travel and Tourism Design
- Awarded April 15, 2024
- CLIENT: The Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts & Vantree Design
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 169,001
- Verification code 69895E9541 · Verify this award
About Dhawa Jinan Daming Lake Resort Hotel
Dhawa Jinan Daming Lake is a resort hotel created within the former Jiangxi Guild Hall, built in the eighteenth century. The protected historical buildings were conserved and adapted for modern hospitality use. Traditional elements were studied and reinterpreted through new compositions, materials and textures. The hotel has a design area of about 16200 square meters and offers 99 guest rooms with bathrooms, bars, a spa, restaurants and conference rooms. A glass staircase with a grid glass ceiling brings daylight into the lobby and links the indoor and outdoor spaces.
Muchuan Xu's Dhawa Jinan Daming Lake Resort Hotel emerges within the distinguished lineage of contemporary hospitality architecture that seeks meaningful dialogue between inherited building traditions and present-day programmatic requirements. The aerial nocturne documentation presented here reveals an ambitious undertaking wherein traditional courtyard compound morphology has been thoughtfully reinterpreted to accommodate contemporary resort functions while maintaining the essential spatial poetry of clustered pavilions organized around intimate outdoor rooms. The compositional sophistication evident in this carefully orchestrated lighting scheme demonstrates particular sensitivity to the phenomenological experience of nighttime arrival and wayfinding, with warm linear elements tracing building perimeters to create legible circulation hierarchies without overwhelming the contemplative darkness essential to nocturnal atmosphere. Technical accomplishment manifests through the seamless integration of the contemporary glass atrium structure, its diamond-patterned glazing system introducing geometric counterpoint to the surrounding traditional roof profiles while providing interior transparency that activates the courtyard as inhabited space visible from surrounding vantage points. The chromatic restraint of the overall scheme, limiting the palette to variations of slate gray, charcoal, and strategically deployed amber, suggests mature design sensibility that prioritizes atmospheric coherence over spectacular effect. One observes how the preserved urban fabric visible in the upper frame provides contextual grounding, situating this hospitality intervention within an established neighborhood texture rather than proposing isolated architectural object. The documentation itself merits recognition for its capacity to communicate spatial complexity through careful selection of vantage point and exposure timing during the blue hour transition when artificial and natural illumination achieve optimal balance. Viewers might contemplate how the rhythmic repetition of traditional roof forms creates visual music across the composition, each pitched volume contributing to a larger architectural ensemble that celebrates collective harmony over individual expression.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- The unique feature of DHAWA Jinan Daming Lake is that the building was the Jiangxi Guild Hall (Longevity Palace), which was built in the Qianlong era (the middle and late 18th century), involving historical and cultural protection buildings. As the idea of the design, "new knowledge of hometown" extracts the traditional elements and culture through translation, constructs the design formal framework, and endows the original traditional architecture with new composition, material, and texture.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- It is the first resort hotel in Shandong that was transformed from traditional northern classical residential buildings, it covers an area of approximately 9800 square meters, with a design area of approximately 16200 square meters and 99 guest rooms with bathrooms, bars, Spa, restaurants and conference rooms. The verandas are connected to each other, with strong privacy.
- Tags
- newknowledgeofhometown, culturalheritagerenovation, activationutilization, resort, chineseculture, Vantreedesign
- Production Technology
- Relying on the protection and maintenance of historical elements and mutual assistance in modern hotel interior design to developed. The concept of the lobby and lobby bar originates from the love story between Xia Yuhe and the Emperor Qianlong. Extracted the imagery, arranged with glass umbrellas and mirrored lotus leaves. The all-day dining restaurant is inspired by the luggage of the Jiangyou business gang. Integrating local elements, and reinterpret the lively of the traditional Jinan market.
- Design Challenge
- Due to the unique historical background of the project, it’s necessary to inherit culture, enter into new era, utilizing innovation and integration capabilities to activate building functions. Transforming traditional buildings requires overcoming the difficulties of tracing back to centuries old humanities, reconstructing cultural elements, and sorting out new and old air and water supply and sewerage systems, creating a modern commerce hospitality space and revitalizing new vitality.
- Project Duration
- In 2015, the project completed the ancient building renovation project, and immediately began the conservation and reconstruction project until the interior design project began in 2020. The interior design was completed in February 2023, and the resort hotel was opened in March 2023.
- Operation Flow
- In concrete forest, it is also important hotel buildings to have the ability to address long-term sustainability and retain the existing original texture in urban regeneration projects as such. In the lobby, there is a glass staircase space with grid glass ceiling, which can bring out well with skylight sustainably. It can also connect the indoor and outdoor into a bright space, allowing guests to experience the upcoming classical and modern collision leisure journey in the light and shadow.
- Research
- The renovation of DHAWA needs to study the extraction of design elements from history and functions to cope with the modern life, and integrate them into the historic palace. By utilizing environmentally friendly transparent materials for the lobby ceiling to create a saves energy’s space, the project is equipped with floor heating and sewerage recycling system to minimize energy consumption. Therefore, the sustainable hotel presents the urban cultural characteristics and revitalizes its heritage.
- Inspiration
- The location of the DHAWA – Baihua pond, with a lot of traditional green brick and black tile quadrangle dwellings (Siheyuan), weeping willows and spring pools, which are the beautiful picture of old Jinan that inspires the design. The designers hope to show the guests what a young Jiangyou businessman saw and heard when he first arrived at the Jiangxi Guild Hall, and to integrate modern hotel functions into the concept of the scene paths and present them in the renovation.
- Image Credits
- Copyrights belong to Vantree Design, 2023.
Colors of Dhawa Jinan Daming Lake Resort Hotel
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