Yuanshe Huaigu Hotel in Moganshan

The site of Huaigu Hotel is located in the middle of Mogan Mountain. The site is long and narrow, extending on one side of the valley, backed by the bamboo sea, facing the farmland, surrounded by green mountains, and a stream flows through the bottom of the valley. The site has excellent natural conditions and is far away from car traffic. One needs to walk tens of meters along the gravel path to reach it. It has a gentle slope up all the way to the deepest part of the valley. Site with Sceneries The site itself is long and narrow, with a width ranging from 10 to 15 meters, and a gentle slope all the way up. The east and west sides of the site have completely different natural characteristics, one side is wide and magnificent, and the other side is quiet and pleasant, bringing a completely different experience to people. The east side of the site is close to the bamboo sea on the hillside, and it seems the bamboo branches are close enough to touch the body. There is relatively open farmland in the west side, with mountains and streams flowing underneath, and silhouettes of mountains in the distance. After seeing the site, our initial intuition was that the “scenery” on both sides is the most attractive feature of the site, and we also began to think about how to bring these scenery into each guest room, how to excavate and shape the landscape characteristics of the bamboo sea, stream, and farmland, to create a different scenery. The long and narrow site determines the need for a long pass way to send guests into each room. The problems we encountered are: 1 How to make each guest room experience different characteristics from the east and west sides? 2 How to separate public circulation and guest rooms so that people will not disturb, or even realize the existence of each other? 3 In what way is the surrounding scenery introduced into the circulation and public areas? Room with a View The hotel has 35 guest rooms in total. The architectural layout continues the pattern of the adjacent mountain village. Buildings are scattered in the long and narrow site. In order to provide each guest room the scenery on both sides of the valley at the same time, we adopted a unit-based system, seven units spread out along the valley, and each building has five guest rooms with different layouts. The two rooms on the first floor are equipped with a small bamboo courtyard on one side of the mountain, where you can sit in and enjoy the tranquility of the mountains and forests. The two rooms on the top floor are equipped with a roof-view terrace, standing on the roof, backed by the bamboo sea to see the mountains. The room at the middle floor is designed with viewing balconies embedded in the building. Through small courtyards, terraces, and balconies, we hope that every guest in each room can enjoy their own "scenery". Inspirations from the Local Covered Walkways The local covered walkways we saw in the surrounding water villages gave us inspiration. It presents a space that is both internal and external: 1. The local covered walkways hides the public street under the eaves, and the street enters the "inside" of the building. 2. However, the street is “outward”. On the one hand, the street is completely outdoor. On the other hand, the opening of the porch along the water brings a strong directionality to the street, and the pedestrians in it naturally look outward. 3. Although the streets and houses are close to each other, people are walking "inside" and their eyes are drawn to "outside", so they hardly realize the existence of those inner side houses. 4. Wind and rain corridor brings a kind of "wandering" experience. The view formed by the eaves, ground and eave pillars frame the outside scenery into the corridor, and the scenery keeps changing as one walking along the pathway. Scenery inside the Covered Walkway Inspired by the Water Village Wind and Rain Corridor, we explored and designed a linear public space system that is closely integrated with the architecture and topography, and embedded it in the ground floor of the building to form a courtyards inside the building. At the same time, the stream of the original valley is introduced into the building and flows into the courtyard of the arcade on the ground floor. The stream falls down along the change of terrain, which makes the courtyards become a vivid place other than abstract spaces. Ripples and splashes stimulate the potential of different senses. The stream enlarges the courtyard, and encloses the mountains into it, and the boundary between the inside and outside of the building is blurred by the corridor and courtyard. Moving along in the corridor, the courtyard twists and opens and closes, with the changing view of mountains, Bamboo Sea, and farmland. The corridor creates not only construct “sceneries”, but also become a unique scenery itself. The covered walkway not only controls the direction of the sight, but also establishes connections between body and landscape. It wraps the body and constructs people's cognition of "inside" and "outside" belonging. "Inside" and "Outside" switch continuously as people move forward. One moment they are in the scenery, but after a turn, they suddenly enter the corridor, peek at the scenery from the inside of the building. The corridor here creates a kind of "labyrinth" experience. In traditional southern Chinese gardens, the "garden" and the "covered walkways" are inseparable. The experience of the garden takes place in the covered walkways, the circulation and the opening closing of buildings shapes the scenery that people can experience in it. Therefore, in the originally open mountains, we used buildings and scenery walls to enclose a "semi-internal" garden-like continuous covered walkways space. This space is not only a hub that connects the hotel’s guest rooms and functional areas, but also brings together the streams, water, countryside and Bamboo Sea. People will get an experience that very similar to that of in southern Chinese gardens. Bamboo and Pastoral The restaurant is located close to the entrance of the hotel. We have created a towering interior space. The 45-degree mirrored ceiling reflects the bamboo sea outside the high window onto the ceiling. The illusion brought by the mirror surface makes the ceiling present a borderless large window. In this process, we use the illusion of mirror reflection to create a brand new scenery for the interior. Outside the restaurant, we use a light frame structure to cover the semi-outdoor corridor space to make up for the lack of indoor dining space. The distant mountains, bamboo seas and farmland are all converged into this open void, allowing the scenery to converge in one place. The 60 acres of countryside outside the valley are not only the scenery seen from the hotel rooms, but also an important event space of the hotel. Following the terrace, we leveled the grounds at three different heights to form three outdoor spaces for weddings, barbecues and picnics. A temperature-controlled swimming pool is set up at the top of the site. Rhythm of Experiences The restaurant and swimming pool have a wide and magnificent scenery, and the arcade courtyard shows more enclosure and change. These strong contrasts of experience bring the rhythm of near and far, walking and staying to the public space of the hotel. All spaces and experiences are connected together to form an unforgettable valley side scenery. com