Going down

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Hotel’s design and engineering overcome unique challenges of building in a disused quarry

The building concept retains its original ' ground architecture, city, photography, reservoir, rock, sea, sky, water, water resources, black, gray — The building concept retains its original ' ground scraper' character with only two of the building's levels above the ground and 16 levels, cascading down the rugged quarry cliff face .

Shanghai’s Shimao Wonderland Intercontinental is built down into aerial photography, architecture, bird's-eye view, city, cityscape, landscape, metropolitan area, photography, river, urban area, water, black

Recently completed, the 337 guestroom 5 star Intercontinental aerial photography, architecture, city, cityscape, metropolis, metropolitan area, night, reflection, black

Layout of Shanghai’s Shimao Wonderland Intercontinental Hotel above architecture, clock tower, photography, urban design, black, gray

Going down – Shanghai’s Shimao Wonderland Intercontinental Hotel aerial photography, architecture, bird's-eye view, city, infrastructure, intersection, junction, landscape, photography, road, street, urban area, urban design, black

The Shanghai’s Shimao Wonderland Intercontinental Hotel building cascades aerial photography, architecture, bird's-eye view, building, city, infrastructure, intersection, junction, landscape, metropolis, metropolitan area, mixed-use, road, stadium, street, urban area, urban design, gray, black

Main entrance in the two floors above ground architecture, building, city, corporate headquarters, daytime, facade, headquarters, reflection, sky, tree, urban design, white

Sculpture in front of the entrance lobby at architecture, art, fountain, sculpture, water, water feature, white

Interior – Shanghai’s Shimao Wonderland Intercontinental Hotel architecture, building, ceiling, interior design, light fixture, lighting, lobby, property, room, brown

The two lowest levels are under water, with architecture, building, ceiling, conference hall, convention, convention center, design, function hall, interior design, lighting, property, resort, restaurant, room, black

Spa at Shanghai’s Shimao Wonderland Intercontinental Hotel architecture, building, ceiling, column, interior design, lobby, property, real estate, room, gray

While most hotels buildings reach for the sky to maximise city views, Shanghai’s Shimao Wonderland Intercontinental heads in the opposite direction – down into an 88m deep, water filled disused quarry.

Recently completed, the 337 guestroom 5 star Intercontinental resort is now open to the public.

Whilst architect Martin Jochman was the original designer of the winning concept of an international competition held in 2006 and oversaw the scheme design development with Atkins in UK and in Shanghai, his design studio JADE + QA, has for past 6 years been progressing and completing this work for Shimao, finalising the design, producing construction information and coordinating the landscape, interior and structural/civil engineering design.

Technical details

The building concept retains its original ' ground scraper' character with only two of the building's levels above the ground and 16 levels, cascading down the rugged quarry cliff face. The two lowest levels are under water, with one level utilised as guest rooms and public areas such as restaurants, facing underwater aquarium, thus creating another unique aspect of this hotel resort.

The hotel also features a large conference/ballroom centre together with water based leisure facilities and swimming pools on the quarry bottom water level. Externally, there are extensively landscaped visitor facilities, such as a outdoor themed entertainment park and cantilevered glass floor overlook walkway.

Apart from minimising the impact of this building on the local environment by adopting a low profile covered with grass roof, the hotel features a spectacular 'glass waterfall' structure to house the vertical circulation core with observation lifts.

The mainly passive sustainable features will take advantage of the orientation, low profile, grass roof and the unique microclimate caused by the thermal properties of the quarry rock mass and the quarry lake, cooling the structure in the summer and heating in the winter.

This successful brownfield site utilisation of a disused industrial quarry site will make this project an important contribution to the principles of sustainability in China.

The engineering challenges facing this project had to solve unusual problems of the seismic implications of the 'tall building fixed at both ends' and the associated problems of fire safety, drainage, water quality and circulation associated with its unique location and the fact that the building is an inverted ‘ground scraper’.