Conran and Partners draws from China’s natural beauty at Park Hyatt Changsha

Images: courtesy of Park Hyatt and Harold de Puymorin

Conran and Partners has completed the design of Park Hyatt’s new outpost in Changsa, China. Now at home in the top floors of a former office tower, the new hotel features 230 guest-rooms across 11 different typologies, alongside communal and social areas including a restaurant, bar, library and wellness facilities. The hotel is inspired by the fashionable IFS mall which the hotel sits on, looking beyond to the Hunan landscape to reflect its volumes, organic forms and a raw expression of nature through natural materials and local craft.

Guests and visitors are welcomed via a courtyard sitting on a podium on the fourth floor, where Conran and Partners created a definite boundary that signifies the beginning of the hotel’s experience – also tasked with creating new cladding and a canopy for the tower as well as designing an elegant extension connecting the main building to the Garden Room – an external pavilion for indoor and outdoor functions next to a green backdrop developed with landscape designers ADI.

“Having previously collaborated with Park Hyatt in Jakarta and Auckland, our goal for the new Changsha outpost was to craft its own true ‘sense of place’ – a home that is both fashionable and reflective of the city’s dynamic essence, as well as a celebration of the natural wonders of the Hunan region,” comments Tina Norden, Principal at Conran and Partners. “By blending clean architectural lines, both in the interiors and in the courtyard architecture, with eclectic elements, we’ve created a destination where modern luxury meets the rich tapestry of Changsha’s local culture.”

Inside, high ceilings are magnified by linear slats and large-scale art installations; split into more intimate series of spaces leading guests to lifts and function areas. Ascending to the 62nd floor, a green leather-clad ante-space creates a feeling of intimacy before emerging into the contrasting scale of the check-in area. The double-height space with detailed timber panelling features a dramatic chandelier by Lasvit inspired by the famous local fireworks and a woven metal paravent screen that reflects the welcoming and celebratory nature of the city.

The communal spaces are designed as an enfilade of flexible rooms called ‘Lilan’, set around a central service area. Central to these spaces is the Sun Room, another double-height space celebrating the juxtaposition of grandeur set against more intimate spaces which surround it. Opposite the communal areas is a series of eight private dining rooms, a one-of-a-kind restaurant “where every seat is the best seat in the house”. Each of the eight rooms has a different colour scheme to give a sense of variation and to ensure a unique dining experience.