Swire Challenges Norm in Beijing with Opposite House

Opening in Summer 2008

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. October 14, 2008

BEIJING, China, May 19, 2008. Celebrated avant-garde architect Kengo Kuma from Japan and edgy Shanghai-based designers Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu challenge the norm in Beijing's new luxury hotel, The Opposite House, opening in summer 2008 as the first in a series of unique hotel properties from newly formed Swire Hotels.

Brian Williams, managing director of Swire Hotels said, "We will work with world leading architects and designers in all Swire Hotels properties, and we've certainly achieved that in appointing Kengo Kuma and Neri and Hu for The Opposite House."

Kuma, who is known for some of the most innovative retail and commercial spaces in Japan, including the LVMH group headquarters and the Suntory Museum in Tokyo, sets out to create a spatial experience of light and space that completely transforms the look of the luxurious contemporary hotel from morning to night. He redefines conventional architectural boundaries to create seamless flowing spaces flooded with light.

The hotel's exterior, a striking emerald glass, is in keeping with the stunning glass exteriors of The Village at Sanlitun, Beijing's premier open-plan shopping and entertainment destination, of which The Opposite House is an integral part.

Interior colors and textures at The Opposite House are a vivid mix of the modern and the traditional. As the hotel borders both a busy nightlife neighborhood and quiet residential area, the exterior is stunning and vibrant, while the interior is soft, securing privacy and comfort. Kuma describes the overall green color scheme as the calm of an "urban forest, for which one of the most important design elements is the play of natural and artificial light."

"A small luxurious contemporary hotel is a very interesting balance of private and public. It has to offer hideaways with the comfort of home, yet at the same time create vibrancy where people flow through public spaces. To create this fine, delicate balance, we softened the demarcation of each space," he explains.

Among the hotel's many striking features, a stainless-steel-clad swimming pool is designed to dramatically reflect both natural light and exciting fiber optic lighting.

Guest rooms are open and simple with natural brushed oak floors, furniture and bathtubs, with subtle touches of Chinese d'ecor to evoke a sense of place in Beijing.

The restaurants, meeting area, and mini club were styled by Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu, partners of the award-winning, Shanghai based international design firm Neri and Hu Design Research Office (NHDRO), whose recent works include Pedder Red Flagship Store in Hong Kong and China House at The Oriental, Bangkok. .

The name, The Opposite House, is derived from a translation of a Chinese word, which historically described the building located opposite the main house in a courtyard where esteemed guests would stay. The name also reflects the hotel's southern location within the courtyard design of The Village at Sanlitun, the new retail and entertainment complex which will raise the bar for international luxury brand shopping and innovative places to eat and drink in Beijing.

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For the design, they worked closely with Shanghai-based chef entrepreneur David Laris, who developed the original restaurant and bar concepts.

"When confronted with an empty concrete shell on the basement level, our initial approach was to break the large cavernous space into five distinct yet related and interactive spaces. Different materials closely associated with the five elements [metal, wood, water, fire, and earth] were used to make them stand out from each other," they explain.

From an elevator, guests first enter "The Egg," stepping through a dark bronze threshold into pure white space. A steel floor reflecting an overhead elliptical dome gives the visitor a sense of floating. The message, as the designers explain, is "the beginning of life and an epiphany for the weary and tired. Solemn and serene, 'The Egg' provides rest for the eyes before transition into the decadent destination points."

The theme is also adopted through a secondary entrance down a concrete flight of stairs, leading to an outdoor Sunken Garden, thick with bamboo and water features, creating small gathering spaces to wait for friends, order a coffee, or dine alfresco.

This garden is adjacent to Mediterranean restaurant Sureno, which features warm woods and blue olive grove patterns. At the heart of the restaurant is the wood-fired oven, with a surrounding counter enabling patrons to watch the chefs at work.

At the neighboring Asian restaurant Bei, guests are surrounded by a forest of trees before entering a clearing and the dining room, where a large mirror allows patrons to watch chefs in action.

Designed with a sense of allure and secrecy, five white "boxes" house private dining rooms that are entered through large bronze doors and across water channels. Each room has its own character and richly appointed furniture. In the largest, water streams down the walls. The vision is "total privacy and exclusivity without compromise."

In contrast, Punk - a late night bar and mini club - is a solitary transparent box, seemingly sunken, wrapped by a rough, punched metal screen. Wooden church pew-like benches hug the walls and juxtaposed modular tables are scattered throughout. Clean, smooth concrete bar tops, angular and fluid Grcic stools and offbeat burnt Maarten Baas chandeliers create a mood of "righteousness as well as wickedness, rough and smooth, parochial and worldly, cool and warm, and ultimately luxury and punk."

"We think that the most important feature of this project is the spatial quality of the area seen as a whole, as opposed to one individual destination. The entire project is treated as a continuous amalgamation of distinct spaces together with a network of public spaces binding them all together - a city within a city," said Neri and Hu.