Bamboo is the focus of this urban hotel in China
A new urban resort hotel catering to business travelers in Shenzhen, China, called the MeeHotel has created a new zen-like environment for guests entirely made from bamboo. The project is called the Bamboo Forest by designers from the PANORAMA Design Group. This is a hotel that wraps guests in different textures from the lobby to the guest suites.
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The lobby of the MeeHotel features a sophisticated light and shadow effect on the main wall. These effects were created in detail by woven bamboo that hangs on screens like draped yarn from the ceiling. A pitched roof ceiling and natural diatom mud finished walls are overlaid by the light and shadow effects. Therefore, the walls and effects cultivate a minimalist and relaxing feeling in the lobby and lounge area.
Related: Sustainable bamboo makes up these off-grid eco-resorts
Every two guest room floors feature a double-height central courtyard. Meanwhile, the hotel has a reflective lake with a bamboo installation of naturally dancing curves that looks like clouds floating over the water. Artisans were hired to create the installation using traditional joining methods that make the most of bamboo’s natural flexibility.
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In the guest suites, visitors are met with further uses of bamboo and rattan that are woven into lightly textured headboards backlit for a calming low-light effect. The entire building from top to bottom gives the effect of calming luxury, simple elegance and understated color.
On the top floor of the MeeHotel is the Sky Café. The café was designed in a vaulted form out of a bamboo structure. It was also topped with a skylight that illuminates the center of the seating area in the daytime. At night, circular LED lights line the top of the space like glowing moons to create a peaceful, poetic experience.
PANORAMA Design Group also used bamboo as an element of traditional culture and as a sustainable building material. Bamboo is a type of grass that grows up to three feet per day. Therefore, bamboo is a much more renewable building material than traditional wood from trees.
“By celebrating the unique quality of bamboo, from the architectural to the interior levels, we continue to promote and allow business travelers to appreciate the beauty of traditional handicrafts that may otherwise have been ignored,” the designers say. “It can ultimately form aesthetic, functional, and cultural enhancement in our busy urban lives.”