thomas heatherwick: sheung wan hotel, hong kong

‘sheung wan hotel’ by thomas heatherwick

designed by british architect thomas heatherwick, sheung wan hotel is a forty-storey hotel for the sheung wan district of hong kong, an area known for its distinct smell of seafood hanging and piled high in shop fronts.

unlike other hotel projects which usually consist of reconstructing new interiors within existing buildings, these accommodations have been conceived from scratch whereby the interior and exterior of the structure are connected physically as well as aesthetically.

the concrete construction is composed of many metal boxes – of four different sizes – manufactured using folded-metal technology, a process typically used for making air conditioning ducts and water tanks. heatherwick has employed this geometric element as a means of interpreting familiar objects found in a hotel room – bed, windo, mini-bar, safe and a place to keep the iron. within each suite, the furniture and fittings are composed of a different arrangement of square components. on the interior, boxes are lined with bronze and coated with rigid insulation foam or upholstered to make beds or seats. the projected facade itself continues the use of this stacked element, made-up of thousands of these boxes, offering a textural edifice that relates to the current streetscape, different from the typical sleek, smooth surfaces found on new developments.

rendering of the hotel

the facade of the building is composed of thousands of boxes offering a textural edifice

multiple boxes of four different sizes are used to form the overall construction of the building

interior view from which the boxes making up the facade are made into seats or beds

conceptual sketch