We had the distinct pleasure to interview award winning designer Honglei Liu about their original and creative Hotel design work. Honglei Liu is an award-winning architectural designer, that makes our world a better place with their original hotel works.
Honglei Liu ("HL") answered Design Interview ("DI") questions about their award-winning work Airland Shenzhen Hotel. Interview questions prepared by Frank Scott.
HL : The design intent was to achieve a pure, natural and romantic ambiance with minimum budget. The designer wished to create a minimal and pure space that offers relaxing and pleasant experiences through its natural beauty.
HL : BLVD’s interior study focused on creating a unique beach holiday experience for our hotel guests, through optimizing and harmonizing the entire interior space to enhance the quality of hotel lighting ambiance. In addition, natural design elements from the beach were introduced to form a spectacular interior color scheme. The colors hue of natural sand extended through the entire hotel. On the other hand, the biggest challenge of this project was how to integrate interior design with the existing architectural structure. In order to complete this renovation within a limited construction budget as our client request, extra design consideration was given to retaining the existing architectural structure. At the end of the project, the solutions we found were functional, enhanced the quality of life and culture of the occupants, and were aesthetically attractive.
HL : As it was a renovation project, the total budget was quite challenging. Because of this, the designers made the best use of the existing space, which is shaped by the curvy architecture. The complicated design was abandoned; instead, natural landscape and sunlight are introduced into interior while keeping the openness and ventilation of the atrium and its surrounding.
HL : BLVD got involved in this project from winning a biding competition invited by the hotel client. BLVD was responsible for interior design of all the front of house areas and landscape design within this hotel property.
HL : The hotel is nestled in a harbor area on the west side the Shenzhen city. It usually takes one or two hours driving from Shenzhen CBD to this fabulous destination. Guests from all around the world and citizen who are working and living in downtown CBD would like to visit Airland hotel a lot for leisure, conferences, and mainly for vacations. BLVD created a contemporary styled beach resort hotel in order to satisfy the market needs of this area.
HL : What is worth mentioning is that in the buffer zone between the atrium and the western styled restaurant, a natural screen resembling a bamboo forest, is artfully created with minimum cost, accented with a sea creature-like light fixture. The screen provides certain privacy and also delivers elegant ambience. The color scheme of the restaurant seeks its inspiration from sea life, which is the theme of the western restaurant. Meanwhile, most of the original European classical stairs are transformed into white and minimalist bowl-like “Bird Nest” forms, which are integrated into the wavy architecture, pure and unique, providing a visual focus for the atrium.
HL : The complicated design was abandoned; instead, natural landscape and sunlight are introduced into interior while keeping the openness and ventilation of the atrium and its surrounding. In the pure white space, wood grains and shadows become the dominant lines in the lobby, accented by the interaction between sunlight and the interior color scheme. As the guestroom is very small, the open-style design was adopted to maximize the light effect in space expansion. The sunlight splashes through the white sheer onto the wall and floor, with the change of time, creating different shadows and lines as in an abstract painting.
