Park Hyatt Changsha, Conran and Partners

Project: Park Hyatt Changsha
Award: Hospitality Interiors, Hotel & Other Overnight Accommodation, 2024
Location: Changsha, China
Design Practice: Conran and Partners
Client: Wharf Holdings

Park Hyatt Changsha is a 230-room hotel in Hunan, occupying the top 22 floors of a tower originally built as office space. The Conran and Partners design team had to work around restricted ceiling heights to create spacious and bright hotel spaces and to include in the design all the amenities of a Park Hyatt hotel, including a 25-metre pool on the 48th floor.

Conran and Partners’ design is inspired by the vibrancy of Changsha and the fashionable IFS mall that the hotel sits on, whilst capturing the spirit of the stunning Hunan landscape with soaring volumes, organic forms and a raw expression of nature through natural materials and local craft.

The hotel features 230 guestrooms across 18 different typologies, as well as communal areas including restaurant, tearoom, bar, library, function rooms and wellness facilities. Guests are welcomed via a courtyard created in collaboration with landscape designers ADI. A natural oasis in the heart of Changsha, it includes new cladding and canopy to the tower with an elegant extension connecting the former office tower to the Garden Room.

Design highlights

The double-height check-in 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 areas are designed as an enfilade of flexible communal areas called ‘Lilan’, set around a central service area, and culminate with three large function rooms designed to evoke the feeling of stepping into a grand residential penthouse. Staying true to the overall design concept, the palette of the guestrooms is restrained, with residential inspired elements including elegant green silk screens around the bed and custom-designed pendant lighting, juxtaposed with the bold colours of the furniture.

Photo credit: Harold de Puymorin / Courtesy of Park Hyatt