Le Méridien Hotel Zhengzhou City, China accommodation building, Modern Chinese landscape architecture photos
Le Méridien Hotel in Zhengzhou City, China
8 September 2023
Architects: Shma Company Limited
Location: Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, China
Photos by Arch-exist
Le Méridien Zhengzhou
Shma Company Limited presents Le Meridien Hotel, located in an urban intersection of Zhengzhou City, China. The small-scale renovation project comprises 6,000 sqm of landscaped area in front of an existing five-star hotel, completed in 2013 by Neri & Hu. The client’s brief calls for a stunning hotel frontage landscape to improve the overall appearance, as well as to simultaneously resolve ground parking spaces and vehicular movement. Being in a densely populated area, the firm set out to achieve a landscape that is interactive, imaginative, and artistically crafted in order to create a new landmark for the neighborhood.
Paying tribute to the historical textile weaving industry of Zhengzhou, Shma created sculptural-like landscape weaves and folds to reveal an aesthetically pleasing public space. A series of undulating lawn stripes represent the silk being woven – up and down – into fabric sheets by traditional machines. An interval space is defined by matching the existing lobby pillars and architectural orders to stitch the landscape and building together in the master plan, seamlessly integrated with the car parking layout. A water feature with a sculpture is proposed in front of lobby drop-off area as a main welcoming element.
The use of two different colors for finishing of stainless steel for the planters is to play with the unique public/private characters of the urban hotel. When viewed from the public roadside, brilliant bronze color is used to project outgoing and fun energy signifying the importance of this urban corner, while black mirror material is selected to achieve a calmer and more relaxing emotion when perceived from the hotel side looking out.
Given that there are massive structures of a new underground metro station beneath half of the landscaped spaces, the firm took great care in the coordination of paving patterns, manholes, and planting soil depth to achieve a simplistic design result. That includes the camouflaging of four ventilation shafts and an emergency staircase structure that pops up on the landscape, providing mirror finishes that make them disappear visually.
Once the landscape was completed, the whole hotel district was lightened by the wavy lawn stripe, the unified reflective water feature, and the interplay of reflection from mirrored planter finishes. It’s a privately owned public space that is quickly becoming a new gathering spot catered to a variety of activities, from a meeting spot for friends, a place for Instagram selfies, to a backdrop for wedding photoshoots. The landscape is perceived as a new landmark of the intersection and has drawn tremendous interest from both residents and visitors.
In this project, the firm’s approach was to design and create a sculptural-like landscape for Le Meridien, while collaborating with the client to solve numerous site problems during the construction process. The result is that Le Meridien has become one of Zhengzhou’s landmarks.
Le Méridien Zhongshan, Guangdong – Building Information
Design company: Shma Company Limited
Shma
‘Shma’ means ‘the Earth.’
Shma is a creative landscape architecture platform with multidisciplinary professionals collaborating to deliver meaningful and thoughtful design that deals with increasing environmental challenges and a better earth.
Shma is a community of landscape architects, technicians, horticulturists, strategic designers, media makers, researchers, and more. Among the diverse team members, they actively exchange ideas and work collaboratively to generate transformative strategies and deliver tangible and measurable landscape designs that enhance social and environmental sustainability. To that same end, Shma works professionally with positive energy as a big family.
Shma is experienced in numerous domestic and international projects varying in types and scales, including residential, hospitality, institution, commercial, urban space, public parks, biodiversity, master planning, research and experimental.
Photos: Arch-exist
Le Méridien in Zhengzhou City / information received 080923 from v2com newswire
Location: Zhengzhou City, Henan, People’s Republic of China, eastern Asia
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