Text description provided by the architects. Miya/LostVilla Hotel is located in Ninghai County HuChen township. Ninghai is a coastal county in the city of Ningbo, East China’s Zhejiang province. Lying between Tiantai Mountain and Siming Mountain, it boasts a beautiful mountainous territory. This hotel is converted from an old Granary station built in 1956. The site consists of six renovated old buildings and one new addition which functions as reception and meeting facility.

Rooms area. Image

Building B. Image

The renovation process is taking on a sensitive approach to the surrounding beautiful scenery and the old Granary station buildings on site. To convert from a storage space to a place where human comfort is in demand becomes quite a challenge to us. Our design approach is to engage a dialogue between the old and new buildings on site as well as a dialogue between architecture, mountain scenery and people.

Site plan

Five of the seven existing buildings were built of stone masonry. All windows were very small in size and located 2.5 meters above ground. The lower part of the building facade is made of rock stone and the upper part is made of brick. They are linked by a continuous cement ring beam. All small windows are located at the upper part of the facade. Based on the new guest room plan, we carefully selected windows to be enlarged in width as well as in height. This is to minimize the opening cuts in the stone masonry exterior facade but meanwhile to allow more natural light penetrates into the interior space. The original facades made of natural stone were being covered with thick layers of white paint. After carefully removed the paint, the beautiful stone masonry facade reveal to its original condition.

Entrance and main road. Image

West elevation

Restaurant and building B. Image

The existing building structure is being kept. Two of the seven buildings have beautiful timber wood structure. We removed the false ceiling to allow wood structure to be exposed. Steel I-Beams are added either to reinforce the existing structure or to act as a channel for hiding all the utility pipes and conduits.

Restaurant. Image

New interior demarcation walls are added to create twenty one guest suites. New bathroom facilities are also added to each guest suite. These new space are created as “boxes nesting inside a room”. The height for each box is controlled between 2.5 meter and 2.8 meter in order to bring the scale of the interior space closer to the perception of human body.

Room. Image

New decks and sun rooms were added to the smallest building on site. The oblique lines of the edge of the deck creates varies view points for hotel guests to appreciate the breathtaking mountain view.

Looking south from the balcony of Building C. Image

The seventh building which was built in the 70s is being demolished and a new building is designed to build within the peripheral of the original building envelope. This new building is located in between two old stone masonry buildings. Our design approach is make the architecture building form as abstract as possible. The south facade of the building is directly facing the hotel main entry. We would like the hotel guests to view the mountain scenery in the distance upon entering. After studied the site condition carefully, we determined the southern facade height being at 4.85m and the north side at 7.1m. The east facade of the new building folds in an angle to echo the existing site condition. By bending and setting back, it created a space for people to lingering around. A secondary passage way is added between the west facade of the new building and the existing building. A stair by the west facade leads to the tea room and viewing deck on second floor. Large glass panels are being used on north and sound facade of the tea room. It maximizes the view of the mountain scenery around.

Building A, B and secondary passage. Image

Building B. Image

The architecture form of the new building is modern and abstract. The contemporary architecture language is yet to be respectful to the existing buildings around as well as to nature. Architecture, people and nature are in harmony.

Building B reception & restaurant. Image © Shengliang Su

• Architects

  Ares Partners

• Location

  Huchenxiang, Ninghai, Ningbo, Zhejiang, China

• Category

  Hotels

• Lead Architect

  Helen Wang

• Design Team

  Helen Wang, Hui Cheng, Zhu Colin, Jieling Hu, Mei Qin, Tengjun Zhan

• Client

  Ninghai Tourism Bureau

• Hotel Operator

  Lost Villa, Ninghai Jade Field

• Area

  2630.0 m2

• Project Year

  2017

• Photographs

  Shengliang Su