Set on the northeastern coast of China’s Hainan Island, Wenchang is home to a lush, undeveloped oceanfront zone the government has set out to cultivate as a destination. Though it features some residential projects, the area’s first resort is the sprawling 439-key Hilton Wenchang. Before there was a hotel, “it was very much uncharted territory,” explains Darrell Long, partner at Los Angeles-based HBA.
Singapore’s WOW Architects crafted the resort’s shell, which Long says is a series of buildings designed into the site rather than on top of it. The HBA team aimed to respect the architecture’s Southeast Asian style, marrying it to the interior design’s modernist approach. Inspired by the location and its cultural framework—specifically looking to its pre-development history as a fishing area replete with coconut groves—Long wanted to make sure “the daily activities of life that exist there influenced the narrative,” he says.
In the lobby, the main goal was to preserve the ocean views. A roof soaring three stories tall at its highest point creates a sense of progression from the entrance to the back of the lobby, while all mechanical elements are hidden in columns that appear structural but are actually decorative. Instead of a bright, tropical space, and because of its vastness, the team opted for a romantic, even sexy, mood—not a common word to describe Chinese hotels, Long points out. “We wanted you to feel like you were inches away from the exterior, both in temperature and visually,” he says.
A massive central metal and glass chandelier alludes to “the way things swim or look under the water,” Long explains, while different types of marble make up the flooring, nodding to the location and typical notions of Chinese luxury. Dark wood furniture, by contrast, is “humble,” Long says, with splashes of blue, yellow, and coral appearing only sparingly in the many seating areas.
A screen motif pervades. Behind the reception desk, for example, one featuring an abstracted geometric Chinese pattern fronts a floor-to-ceiling panel depicting bougainvillea (the island’s flower) and three layers of extruded stone, all illuminated. The screens appear again in guestrooms (as does the floral pattern in some headboards), which have a purposefully neutral palette, intended to encourage guests to get outside and experience their surroundings. In response to the humid climate, rooms feature hardstone flooring covered with area rugs and wood on the walls to resist mold. Meanwhile, bathrooms—divided via sliding wooden doors—feature dark-colored marble vanities and light walls, reminiscent of a coconut’s textures.
Italian eatery Bocca, with its wood-burning oven and exhibition kitchen, departs from the Asian aesthetic. “We looked at motifs and furnishings, ideas and lines, of vintage Italian design—from sports cars to fashion,” Long says, manifested in stitching and leather strapping on furniture and a rolling ceiling pattern (calling to mind a car spoiler or the ocean) that casts an interesting light pattern on the floor. And in Chinese seafood restaurant Haitian, the region’s traditional architecture is made sexier and modern thanks to translucent orange acrylic resin lighting fixtures resembling local aquatic life.
Overall, it’s a “Hilton that has a contemporary feel under modernist principles,” Long says.
