Mauve Glamor Hotel Chengdu
The ‘Mauve Glamor’ hotel – a 4* leisure and themed hotel on the shore of a lake, nestled in a subtropical landscape – is part of a tourism complex invested by the real estate giant ‘Wanda Group’ since 2016, which in turn is part of a much larger urban development project called ‘Chengdu Wanda City’.
RhineScheme’s planning tasks in this project included the architectural planning of the ‘Mauve Glamor’ hotel and the preliminary design of the adjacent spa area, and above all the master plan of the entire tourism complex, which formed the basis for the detailed planning of the 6* luxury hotel.
The themed hotel, which received the Yuanye Award in 2023, is located in the south-western corner of the site and develops its own charming inland landscape along the Heishi River, which flows parallel to the lakeshore and is only separated from the lake by a narrow embankment.
Location
The immediate surroundings form a hotel group arranged around an artificially created lake, consisting of a 6-star hotel, a 5-star hotel, the panda-themed ‘Mauve Glamor’ hotel, a conference centre and a bar street, with a total gross floor area of around 140,000 square metres.
The hotel group is only a five-minute drive from the ‘DuWen’ highway, which connects Sichuan and Tibet’s tourist attractions. On the way to Tibet, the complex is the last stop with hotels of higher categories.
The tourism complex is located in the south of the city of Dujiangyan, a tourist destination known throughout China for its 2,200-year-old irrigation system.
The hotel complex borders the wide Min River (the longest tributary of the Yangtze) to the east and the Hengduan Mountains with the over 2,400m high Zhaogong Peak to the west.
Within the 27 hectare site, a 7.5 hectare lake has been excavated – in addition to the existing watercourses – which enriches the landscape in a special way.
Spa area
The spa area integrated into the complex is located between the “Mauve Glamor” and the neighbouring five-star hotel.
It has a separate external entrance and access from both hotels through a corridor. The floor area of the spa building is 1,800 sqm, and the spa area is also equipped with 7 outdoor pools totalling 2,000 sqm.
The design of the facade of the spa building is based on traditional forms and materials of Western Sichuan. However, in order to create a relaxed atmosphere, civil construction methods such as the ‘ChuanDou’ structure or the so-called “supporting arch” were used.
Theme Hotel | Task
The ‘Mauve Glamor’ hotel borders the huge ‘Wanda Entertainment Park’ on the opposite side of the street, to the south. This is not the only reason why the decision was made early on in favour of a themed hotel: as an answer to the amusement offer that would follow and in order to avoid an all too abrupt change in uses (hotel vs. entertainment).
As there are several panda research and protection parks in the city of Chengdu, only 50 km away, the “World of Pandas” was chosen as the theme for the hotel. This rooted the theme in the location in a meaningful way. At the same time, there was a desire to express the “panda” theme through the building itself – in contrast to other themed hotels that spring up all over the place and limit the theming exclusively to interior design and ornaments.
So one of the main aims was – in contrast to what is usual for themed hotels – to create a more or less immediate feeling through the shape of the building and the façades, which refers to the chosen theme.
The method was allowed and should definitely include and suggest a certain degree of playfulness. Guests, not least families with children, should be able to feel the “world of the pandas” not only through elements of the landscape and interior design, but already through the building itself.
Architecture and Façade
Approaching the hotel from the street, one sees a 6-storey organically shaped building in a composition reminiscent of several lying panda bears. The direct connotation was increasingly abstracted in the course of the planning, but is still dimly recognisable on closer inspection.
Originally, the faces and bodies of the pandas were indicated on a white background by means of dark grey spots and shapes; what has remained is the themed bamboo base with the paw-shaped round openings as well as the pictorial bamboo groves that hide the vertical development cores. As an ensemble and largely abstracted, the composition is thus reminiscent of a natural panda habitat.
On the ground floor, large framed windows emerge from the façade and define the main public areas of the hotel.
The building itself consists of four main sections with an undulating façade that opens onto the river and the lake beyond to optimise the view from the guest rooms.
The undulating gesture allows for the framing and enclosure of a hotel garden that provides privacy and distance from the lively street.
In keeping with the design approach, the hotel primarily targets families with young children.
The total of 461 guest rooms have balconies that extend to the water side or to the no less charming mountain side, which ultimately makes the hotel special not only because of its theme but also because of its magnificent views of the scenic attractions of the place.