On the beach of Shimei Bay, known as the "most beautiful" beach in Hainan, there is a 4,000-year-old vatica mangachapoi forest community stretches along the coastline. It has been protected by the government from the Qing Dynasty Guangxu years, and is one of the world's last three major coastal vatica mangachapoi forests. Covering nearly 120,000 square meters, Westin Shimei Bay Resort is located here. The unique geographical environment has been constantly providing design inspirations for YANG. “Exploring the Vatica mangachapoi Forest” is chosen as the theme in line with the Westin hotel’s natural leisure and vibrant brand positioning. Plants and natural distributions of water in the vatica mangachapoi forest are ingeniously move into the hotel lobby. Natural patches, trunks and other elements, extracted from vatica mangachapoi, are copied on screens, carpets, and walls.
The hotel lobby takes an area of nearly 10,000 square meters and is 23 meters in height. With such a huge space, YANG was inspired by the towering old trees of the vatica mangachapoi forest, building up 36 huge concrete "trunks" in the lobby. As pillars of the lobby space, the "trunks" are covered by aluminum sheets with natural wooden textures. At the same time, passageways built between "trunks" formed up an air corridor, which not only solve the problem of excessive space scale, but also reproduce a mysterious sense of the jungle.
Bing exposed to the nature and wandering between cultures. Once again, YANG redefines the tradition of designing. By “exiling” most of the hotel space to nature, YANG successfully combine the architecture, the landscape, and the interior design into a harmonious one. As the world's largest Westin hotel, the Westin Shimei Bay Resort is going to be a perfect example of design and nature combination, and a new milestone for Starwood resorts hotels.