amidst a remote bamboo forest in anhui, china, shanghai-based firm JAXDA designed the miyuan hotel. the project is a 22-room boutique hotel where visitors can feel the passage of time and have close contact with nature. the site is hidden between the mountains of anhui, adjacent to the mouth of a dam and its river, and surrounded by hiking tracks that explore the bamboo forest. 

all images © amey kandalgaonkar
 
 
for the project, JAXDA adapted the surrounding, unused buildings and gave them different functions to meet the hotel?s needs. as guests enter the building, a contrasting dialogue begins between the exterior and the interior, the new and the old, humans and nature. the building is understood as a configuration of different volumes that make up the rooms connecting them through a corridor located in the northwest area of the building that allows the movement between different levels.
 
 
all the materials are natural and raw, adding to the connection to nature. the project uses stone bricks, wood and bamboo, focusing on the typical bamboo of the area. the designers used bamboo to create a cover façade reinterpreting a contemporary version of the traditional architectural use of it in the region. then, they integrated the north façade inside the surrounding bamboo forest. the bamboo poles are adjusted along the facade to form shadow blinds. 

 
 
a graphic play is created with the vertical lines of bamboo canes, which in turn allows viewers to view the ...