dgj171 dgj171 SPARK, China, China , 2012

spa + park

 

The client’s demand was to set a new series of activities in support of the existing cultural theme park; the new expansion should host a beauty and wellness centre, and at the same time represent some Chinese minorities.

The starting point of the design is the understanding that an activity for a healthy body and mind should be taken care of in the proper place. Therefore, the idea was to spread the functional programme required onto the large available surface of the plot that should maintain the characteristics of a park.

The main clubhouse is the main receptive building, while several activities are split in different pavilions, shaped as stones. The possibility of staying over is satisfied thanks to a diffused hotel, set above the artificial lakes, reassembling the typical resort-like palafitos, ensuring different sizes for different needs and users, each one with their own semi-private outdoor garden.

The inspiration of the design comes from the garden seen as the very first appropriation and experience of nature by humans; especially the stones garden resembles both the ideas of timeless and sculpture gardens. The design process is very straightforward: the new landscape is properly shaped recreating a series of continuous hills and passages as if they were carved by a rake, and the pavillions are placed in a sequence, recreating the sensation of a scaled-up stones garden.

The different elements of the new intervention enhance the existing context as well as creating the unique landscape that, by itself, could work as a main attractor.

The two entities of the Spa and the Park have been combined into the SPARK from which the regeneration of the area will arise.

project period 06/2011 - 2012
useSport. Leasure, Landscape
floor area 60,000 m²
commissionDirect Comission, Study
project team: Freddy Curiel, Daniel Jauslin
project status: prepearing to build