The site located within West Lake area in Hangzhou is adjacent to the famous Lingyin temple, enjoying exclusive ambient. Due to the excellent environment and location, the client insisted on building an exclusive hotel on this small site of only 13000m² with 40 suites. The ambition was to design a highly dense hotel embedded in natural environment, achieving relaxed holiday atmosphere. In order to do so, the design took full advantage of the terrain elevation, behind which many auxiliary functions are hidden. Guest flows will be routed by well-designed pedestrian roads so that every guest unit owns its independent access. The use of terrain elevation also helps improving privacy; therefore, despite of the high density of guestrooms, absolute privacy is guaranteed. Furthermore, most of the trees on site were not moved away, on the contrary, the seemingly free-style layout of the dense suites area is a result of meticulous planning of avoiding vegetation, coordinating elevation and optimizing sunshine.

There is an old, abandoned villa on the verge of a state of extreme disrepair dating from republican period. Despite of the scarcity of land, architects and client still insisted on its restoration, both for the villa and for its yard. At the end, the old villa and its yard will host public service functions of the hotel, engaging in an interesting dialogue with the new hotel area.