Silver Architecture, Building and Structure Design · 2022
Dongyi Dunhuang Hotel
- A' Design Award 2022 Silver Winner in Architecture, Building and Structure Design
- Awarded April 15, 2022
- CLIENT: Newsdays Agency
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 20,776
- Verification code 57224B3A78 · Verify this award
About Dongyi Dunhuang Hotel
Dongyi Dunhuang is a hotel located near the desert in Dunhuang, Gansu, China. The design draws on traditional northwestern buildings of the region, such as the local earth wall and the drying house. The walls are built with rammed earth made from locally produced mud, so the hotel appears calm and seems to grow from the surrounding land. The site area is 41,541 square meters and the building area is 10,299 square meters. The plan follows the idea of a quiet retreat. Guests can rest and experience the history and the natural landscape of Dunhuang.
Newsdays and Qingdao Metro's Dongyi Dunhuang Hotel emerges from within a rich tradition of desert architecture that spans millennia, drawing upon the profound wisdom of earthen construction while articulating a distinctly contemporary spatial vision. The building's stepped volumetric composition appears to engage directly with ancient fortress and caravanserai typologies, those venerable waystations that once dotted trade routes, offering shelter and respite to travelers crossing vast arid expanses. The architects demonstrate remarkable sensitivity to regional material traditions, employing what appears to be rammed earth or similarly textured masonry that achieves visual integration with the surrounding terrain while maintaining structural clarity and compositional sophistication. The interplay of advancing and receding planes creates a dynamic sculptural presence, with the central tower element serving as both symbolic beacon and functional climatic mediator, its perforated upper section suggesting traditional mashrabiya screens adapted for contemporary thermal performance. Light becomes a primary material in this composition, with the afternoon sun transforming planar surfaces into a study of geometric abstraction, casting bold triangular shadows that shift throughout the day in an ever-changing dialogue with the built form. The restrained chromatic palette, unified within earth tones from pale limestone through warm ochre, demonstrates sophisticated understanding of desert aesthetics and the psychological comfort derived from harmonious environmental integration. Sparse vegetation punctuating the composition suggests careful landscape consideration, introducing vital green notes that speak to oasis traditions and the preciousness of cultivated life in arid regions. The work invites contemplation of shelter's essential meaning, how human ingenuity transforms challenging landscapes into places of refuge and beauty, and how contemporary practice might honor ancestral wisdom while addressing present needs.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Dunhuang is located at the border of Gansu and desert. This unique landform and profound cultural genes have created the diversity and splendor of Dunhuang a thousand years ago, also brings the possibility of close interaction between humans and ecology. And Dongyi Dunhuang is to create this possible connection. Travelers to experience the surprise of being secluded in the thousand-year history and natural landscape through Dongyi.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Site area: 41,541 square meters
Building area: 10,299 square meters - Tags
- Oriental aesthetics, Chinese style, Hidden world, Contemporary, Purely
- Production Technology
- The architectural design of Dongyi Dunhuang continues the thinking of the spiritual life of scholar-officials. It draws on the traditional northwestern residences such as the "earth wall" and "drying house" in Dunhuang. The rammed earth construction technique is built with locally produced mud embryos, thus making the building calm." "Hidden" in the overall surrounding environment, as if growing naturally.
- Design Challenge
- The Dongyi Dunhuang architectural cluster interprets people's demands for the current era, and the memories and emotions of the Dunhuang field are not only different from the surrounding buildings, but also mutually confirming.
It aims to use architecture as a carrier to create a realm of wabi-sabi from sand dunes to Gobi. The design is minimalist and the realm is secluded. It respects the texture and form of the material itself. It naturally forms an unbounded time in a bounded space. - Project Duration
- The project started in April 2018 in Dunhuang and finished in June 2021 in Dunhuang.
- Operation Flow
- "Dunhuang is like an old friend, but a new visitor. Thousands of years of history come with a new look. I hope to find some "possibility" to carry'her.' When introducing the Dongyi Dunhuang project, Chen Xiangjing, the chief designer of the Newsdays, expressed his expectations for Dunhuang. After many boutique hotel design practices, this stage seems to be the most mature time to explore the "possible Dunhuang". Dongyi Dunhuang is the base for finally realizing this "possibility".
- Research
- In this unique and ethereal area, Dongyi Dunhuang uses the form of architecture and space to provide guests who are far away with a place to hide and enjoy the pure Dunhuang experience.
This is a place where you can enjoy a high-quality experience.
This is a place where you can temporarily suffer from forgetting.
This is a delicate retreat. - Inspiration
- What Dongyi Dunhuang plans is a place that can be hidden from the world and has an oriental aesthetic attitude.
"Hidden" is a unique and culturally significant behavior of the Chinese literati group. This kind of "hidden" temperament is often appealed to the image of boldness in the vast northwestern desert, retreating in the prosperous world, and clarifying oneself in the sparse world, declaring a kind of vigor and spirit, just like the Dongyi Dunhuang. - Image Credits
- YM Studio, Dongyi Dunhuang Hotel, 2021
Colors of Dongyi Dunhuang Hotel
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