The 13th China International Garden Expo Park is situated in the historic and culturally rich city of Xuzhou, surrounded by mountains and rivers, offering picturesque landscapes. Dangkou Hotel, an essential supporting project of the Garden Expo, is located at the park’s southwest corner, perched halfway up the mountain. To the north, it overlooks the main scenic area of the Expo and Hanging Lake, providing expansive views.
The project’s positioning balances the hotel’s resort nature with the Garden Expo’s planning concept. The Dangkou Hotel design embraces the principles of “green and innovation,” emphasizing harmony between the building and its natural surroundings. By maximizing the use of nearby landscape resources, the hotel aims to restore the mountain environment and offer visitors a distinctive and immersive experience.
Design Philosophy
“Viewing the lake from the mountains, weaving and restoring the Dangkou, suspended buildings, and three-dimensional gardens — virtual places conceal the real, while real places embrace emptiness. The garden slopes gently, with peaks glimpsed intermittently. The weaving and restoring of the Dangkou is exquisite.” This poetic description captures the essence and vision behind Dangkou Hotel’s design.
To naturally integrate the hotel into the mountain and water environment, the architecture employs a strategy of breaking down the building into smaller volumes arranged staggeredly across different elevations. The spaces between these suspended volumes create multi-level, three-dimensional garden areas, connected by boardwalks. This design forms a circular pathway from the hotel base to the mountaintop, offering guests a rich variety of spatial experiences such as mountain climbing, bridge crossing, lake viewing, and garden strolls.
The hotel base is positioned mid-mountain on the northern slope, consisting of two terraces with an elevation difference of approximately 8 meters. The site is a rugged geological area shaped by quarrying, making excavation difficult. As a result, the underground garage and logistics areas are placed on the lower terrace, while the lobby and dining facilities occupy the higher terrace. Guest rooms are thoughtfully arranged along the mountain terrain, appearing embedded in the mountainside but maintaining sufficient distance to comply with fire access regulations. This layout also accommodates boardwalks and platforms, allowing guests to engage closely with the cliff environment.
To shield the exposed 40-meter-high cliffs and provide more rooms with panoramic views, the design extensively employs elevated construction, raising the building’s height. Guests can enjoy expansive views of the lake and surrounding mountains through elevated spaces. Meanwhile, park visitors can glimpse the cliffs behind the hotel through these elevated openings.
On the building’s fifth floor, an aerial coffee bar faces the cliff, offering a comfortable outdoor space enclosed within a tall, grey volume. This area serves as a relaxing spot for travelers to unwind and socialize. The coffee bar features a skylight that allows guests to gaze at the stars even while indoors.
On the south side of Dangkou Hotel, a themed hotel stands across the mountain, separated only by a narrow ridge. The design boldly proposes merging the two hotels into a single complex to share space and operations. To achieve this, the ridge was blasted, and a covered passageway was built to connect both sides. This enables shared access to the first-floor public areas, underground logistics, and equipment zones, integrating facilities and enhancing operational efficiency while significantly reducing costs.
The top floor of this connecting structure is a 10-meter-high multifunctional hall linking Dangkou Hotel’s rooftop garden with the themed hotel’s rooftop sky pool. This versatile space can be used as a wedding hall, a unique book bar, or a gym.
The structural design faced significant challenges due to the hotel’s large spans, overhangs, irregular floor plan, and complex connections that contribute to its elegant form. To ensure the building’s integrity, rigorous out-of-limit testing was conducted. The final design adopts a reinforced concrete frame with shear walls, combining cylindrical and square steel tube concrete columns with steel beams for the high-rise sections. This approach minimizes column cross-sections, reduces the need for diagonal supports, and preserves the layout of guest rooms.
In line with the “green ecology” concept, the hotel incorporates advanced technologies such as BIM modeling, prefabricated construction, rainwater recycling, natural lighting optimization, and intelligent building management systems. These features enabled the building to achieve a two-star green building certification.
The Dangkou Hotel’s design is tailored to the local environment, seamlessly integrating with the terrain. It establishes a new harmony between architecture and nature, as well as between people and their surrounding mountains and waters. The hotel offers a unique sensory experience that inspires respect and affection for nature, representing a contemporary interpretation of the “unity of man and nature.”
Project Drawings
△ First Floor Plan
△ Third Floor Plan
△ Fifth Floor Plan
△ Eighth Floor Plan
△ Section Diagram
△ Section Diagram
Project Information
Architect: Architectural Landscape Design
Area: 28,273 m²
Project Year: 2022
Photographer: Wen Pei
Manufacturers: Jianlang, Shandong Huajian, Suzhou Zhengnengliang, Xinyi
Lead Architect: Cheng Taining
CCTN Design Team: Wang Dapeng, Lan Chuxiong, Sheng Siyuan, Zhang Xiaoyu, Qiu Peixin, Liao Huiwen, Xiao Huajie, Shi Miaojia
EPC Unit: China Construction Technology Group Co., Ltd
Owner: Xuzhou Xinshengyuan Boyuan Construction and Development Co., Ltd
Curtain Wall Design: China Construction Shenzhen Decoration Co., Ltd
Landscape Design: China Construction Technology Group Co., Ltd., Shanghai Jiao Tong University Planning and Architectural Design Co., Ltd.
Floodlight Design: Zhejiang Ruilin Light Environment Group Co., Ltd
Location: Xuzhou
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