Relfections @ Sanya, Hainan Island, China

2008

Dubbed as one of the fastest growing tourist resort destination in China, Sanya enjoys an all- year round influx of tourists and locals, thus generating a significant demand for a new housing typology in China, that of a holiday home.

The task is to cater for 700 apartments units, comprising of both 1 and 2 Bedroom apartment units, within 6 towers of 30 storeys each, with additional landed housing units. Small unit dimensions meant that the overall proportion of core area per floor plate will be relatively large, thus leading us to redistribute the units into 4 towers, reducing the number of towers and increasing efficiency.

Taking form inspiration based of an image of a traditional Chinese ‘Moongate’ reflecting upon itself and a deliberate strategy to create a spatial enclosure, a square is formed by the 4 conjoined towers in a linear fashion on each side, and encompassing as inner courtyard space. This insertion of green voids between units not only influences on the unit distributions, it allows residents living on higher levels access to sky gardens and increase on building porosity. The resulting building form departs from the ‘Point’ block typology, and instead adopts a connected mass, hat hovers over an inner circular lake and providing a quiet and contemplative enclosure.