The Deep Pit Ice and Water World is located in the Dawang Mountain Resort Area near the city of Changsha. It combines different sports and leisure facilities plus supporting restaurants and shops with a total gross floor area of 120,000m2. The 5 Star Hotel aside with a gross floor area of 60,000m2 offers 330 high-class rooms as well as restaurant, bar, conference rooms and spa.
The buildings are integrated into the landscape scenery and positioned directly on top of a historical quarry pit and lake. The sculpted shell of the Ice and Water World spans 170 meters from cliff to cliff over a sunken and hanging garden creating a new functional leisure space of islands, water, cliffside pathways and ramps connecting the building to this natural heritage.
This framed open space in between architecture and landscape is also characterized through a central 90 meter high glass cone providing controlled natural daylight down through the Ice World structure and on to the islands and water surfaces below. An eye-catcher is the cantilevered, crescent-shaped outdoor swimming pool that creates a 60 meter high waterfall into the quarry pit.
From the inside of the Ice World large glass façades offer views through to the natural cliff faces and hanging gardens as well as to the water pools and islands below. At the same time visitors walking on the cliffside pathways can also look into the building to create an interactive visual contact with the interior of the Ice World.
A separate sculptural 100m high tower on the south end of the site hosts a 5 Star-Hotel. It offers 270 high-class single and double bed suites, 60 Executive Suites and a Presidential Suite, all with impressive views to Tongxi Lake, Dawang Mountain and into the Ice World.
A spacious central Lobby around the tower core contains a bar and restaurant on level one, flexible and multifunctional conference areas on level two and the fitness, spa and beauty facilities on level three. A special garden-plaza connects the hotel with the Ice World to a building complex of exceptional presence and design quality. Source by COOP HIMMELB(L)AU.
- Location: Changsha, China
- Architect: COOP HIMMELB(L)AU
- Design Principal: Wolf D. Prix
- Senior Project Partner: Markus Prossnigg
- Design Architects: Quirin Krumbholz, Tyler Bornstein
- Project Coordinator: Lei Feng
- Project Architect: Angus Schoenberger
- Project Team: Paul Challis, Sorena Dumitru, Laura Ghita, Veronika Janovska, Philipp Scherl, Crystal K.H Tang, Xinyu Wan, Denitsa Parleva
- Structural Engineering: B+G Ingenieure / Bollinger und Grohmann GmbH, Frankfurt, Germany
- MEP / HVAC: Buro Happold Ltd, Bath, UK, Steve Macey (Competition Phase)
- Client: Changsha Xiandao Land Development & Construction Co., Ltd.
- Site Area: 150,000m2
- Ice World Gross Floor Area: 120,000m2
- 5 Star Hotel Gross Floor Area: 60,000m2
- Height Ice World: 30m
- Height 5 Star Hotel: 100m
- Depth of Pit: 60m
- Competition 1st Prize: 2013
- Start of Construction: 07/2014
- Status: Under Costruction
- Photographs: Szeto Wing, Courtesy of COOP HIMMELB(L)AU
