Zenstay Hotel by Shengzhe Shen is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2022 Silver A' Design Award in Architecture, Building and Structure Design Competition Category.
SilverArchitecture· 2022
Zenstay Hotel
Client: Zen-In Architects
Silver A' Design Award Winner in Architecture Category
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #126073The Design
About Zenstay Hotel
Zenstay is a boutique hotel on Dongji Island in Zhoushan, China. The project is a reconstruction of an original stone house on a hillside. Local dwelling forms and natural textures guided the design. The original stone and timber structure is preserved, and new white blocks connect the separated public spaces. An atrium and a staircase link the old and the new parts. Materials include concrete, local ashlar, old larch wood, used grey tiles and stucco. The hotel holds nine sea view guest rooms, a restaurant, a bar, a conference room and a viewing platform.
The Recognition
About the Silver A' Design Award
Zenstay Hotel is a Silver A' Design Award winner, an extraordinarily prestigious recognition granted to top-of-the-line, gorgeous, and impressive designs. Silver winners are tremendously brilliant and exceedingly creative works that illustrate the outstanding expertise, talent, and acuity of their designers. Zenstay Hotel is expected to be a wonderful, showpiece work that is remarkably professional and profoundly innovative. This Silver A' Design Award-winning design is a highly notable, admired invention that benefits and advances the boundaries of art, science, design, and technology. Zenstay Hotel is a vastly envied creation that evokes desires, introduces positive feelings, and sparks amazement and wonderment.
Where to Get It
Architectural Renovation and Cultural Heritage Design Services
We transform historical buildings and traditional spaces into vibrant modern destinations while preserving their cultural essence. Our award-winning approach seamlessly integrates contemporary functionality with authentic regional character, creating sustainable architectural solutions that honor the past while embracing the future.
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Design Interview
What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?
Localism and Modernism. Sincere and direct.
What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve?
Focusing on the integration of local traditional culture and new contemporary art. Adapt local traditional culture to contemporary living habits and aesthetics.
What are your future plans for this award winning design?
This is a new beginning for me.
Behind the Design
Press Kit
Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.
- Unique Properties
- Based on local dwelling and natural texture, the reconstruction project aimed at improving quality of living for visitors by generating functional spaces satisfy both needs of traditional culture and modern experience under the seemingly dramatically opposite old and new architectural forms. While preserving the original structure to the largest extent, novel white blocks were inserted to establish continuity between detached public spaces. At the same time, atrium and staircase offered a smooth transition between the old and new and with a purpose to strengthen the harmonious and stable of the place.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Site area: 456 square meters, covered area: 733 square meters.
Original area: 318 square meters, new area: 415 square meters.
Including, 9 sea view guest rooms, 1 restaurant, 1 sober bar, 1 conference room and 1 full viewing multifunctional platform. - Tags
- Hotel, Residential, Adaptive renovation, Interventional reconstruction, Sustainable idea, Rural design, Rebirth, Island, Stone house, Low tech, Regional cultural
- Production Technology
- Structure: Original stone-timber structure, Frame structure.
Material: Concrete, Local ashlar, Red block, Old Larch wood, Used grey tiles, Stucco, Soil stabilizer.
Construction team: Local Builders. - Design Challenge
- In the process, there were series of difficulties overcame by folk wisdom and design strategy on the islands far away from the mainland without large construction machinery and vehicles. The concrete was poured by terrain and gravity, after transported to the top of the hillside by human and animal power. Trying to keep the traditional houses details and unique living experience, we combined modern materials with local craft as well. For example, the original style of the ashlar wall was put back to normal by soil stabilizer and loess. We had to face bad weather and goods shortage where could be more difficult than on the mainland.
- Research
- Thanks to the project, we explored the traditional stone house in island to construct skills as an appropriate technology (low tech), regional cultural of reference, its interventional reconstruction of the possibility and its sustainable idea of the necessity and reflection. By the protection of the original fabric and the innovation of the new format, we turned the old stone house of the rural island into a rebirth.
- Inspiration
- Zenstay Boutique Hotel is the ideal home for a post-80s couple on Dongji Island, the eastern end of mainland China, a original stone house on a hillside. Watching tides rise and fall, weathered by time and elements, stone houses create the rustic island culture and the beauty of years. The "local dwelling" and "natural texture" were the entry points for the design.
- Project Duration
- The project started in April 2017 in Dongji Island, Zhoushan and finished in February 2019.
- Operation Flow
- In fact, most border islands have two sides of extremes — the cultural enclaves locked in the past and the hot spots for literary youth. Natural, traditional or fashion, postmodern would be conflicting and symbiotic. The design of Zenstay Boutique Hotel has both traditional and novel aspects as well, trying to cater the functional and scene requirements from its two aspects with a sincere and simple attitude.
- Patents
- Copyrights belong to Shengzhe Shen, 2021.
- Team Members
- Lead Architect: Shengzhe Shen
Architect: Yixin Guo
Structural Design: Wei Chen - Image Credits
- Image #1: Photographer Weiqi Jin, Aerial night view, 2020.
Image #2: Photographer Weiqi Jin, Main facade, 2020.
Image #3: Photographer Weiqi Jin, Platform, 2020.
Image #4: Photographer Weiqi Jin, Old and new, 2020.
Image #5: Photographer Weiqi Jin, Guest room, 2020.
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