Modern architectural style from Macau – The Morpheus Hotel by architect Zaha Hadid
An impressive architectural project was recently completed in Macau and its modern style is attracting a great deal of interest. The Morpheus Hotel is an extraordinary masterpiece that takes us back to the future. Macau’s skyline – the autonomous territory known as China’s version of Las Vegas – received a stunning new 40-story building designed by the sadly late award winner Zaha Hadid. The Morpheus Hotel, which opened its doors on June 15th, rises from the city of dreams. A modern architectural style also impresses with 770 rooms, which are located behind what is said to be the first free-form high-rise with an exoskeleton.
As the most popular travel destination in Asia, Macau welcomed more than 32 million tourists in 2017, with visitor numbers increasing every year. The City of Dreams in Cotai is a leading integrated resort with a casino, two theaters, a shopping district and four hotels.
The Morpheus Hotel – Innovative and modern architectural style
Hadid’s original plans for the construction project were inspired not only by designs using ancient jade carvers, but mostly also by geological formations naturally formed by erosion processes. Consequently, the result is a building with few precedents when it comes to a modern architectural style. In this regard, the architect has redefined the boundaries between new technologies and historical, naturally occurring forms.
Technically, the Morpheus Hotel is made up of two towers that connect at the top and bottom, with three vertebrae carved out from the central section. They create bridges between the towers that house restaurants, bars and lounges. In addition, the bridges in the atrium are visible, allowing an open floor plan. This regulates different levels of privacy, acoustics, thermal comfort and the view accordingly.
Furthermore, in the reception area with white marble you can see prismatic, three-dimensional walls, which are surrounded by hundreds of golden sculptures. True to Hadid’s vision as an innovator, such a modern architectural style is also a milestone in the collaborative way in which the hotel was created. Every member of the team was able to optimize the digitally generated model of the structure from anywhere in the world. This has resulted in a completely new way of designing rooms. For this reason, according to experts, such innovations can radically change our future growth.
Modern architectural style with multi-dimensional shapes
The design of the Morheus, which is inspired by the flowing forms of China’s rich jade carving art, combines uniquely shaped public spaces and spacious guest rooms with innovative technology and formal cohesion. Conceived as a vertical extrusion of its rectangular base, there is a series of cut voids that connect many of the hotel’s common spaces with the city, creating sculptural shapes that define the hotel’s public area.
The building structure is connected to the surrounding three-story podium of the resort and features hotel suites and villas. This includes meeting and event rooms, play areas, spa and penthouses with pools, as well as extensive outdoor areas and ancillary facilities. The futuristic-looking modern architecture of the hotel has its own visual identity and solves the many complex concepts of the building in a unique, coherent construction. The team ZHA- Zaha Hadid Architects started construction in 2012. At that time there were already foundations for a residential tower that was not developing any further.
First, the team designed the Morpheus Hotel primarily as a simple extrusion of the existing abandoned foundations. The rectangular floor plan defines two internal, vertical cores that connect to each other at the level of the pedestal and the roof and allow guests many amenities.
Unusual construction and modern architectural style in one
In addition, the extrusion creates a monolithic block that makes optimal use of its development environment as it is limited to a height of 160 meters. The underlying diagram of the hotel design is a pair of towers, while the central atrium between them runs at the same level as the hotel and is criss-crossed by external voids. These connect the north and south facades. These giant holes form the urban window that brings the inner communal spaces of the city closer.
Three horizontal vortices create the cavities through the building and shape the inner public spaces. This also resulted in the angular and multi-dimensional suites, which offer a spectacular view of the forecourt and the city. This arrangement and a modern architectural style maximize the number of hotel rooms with external views and guarantee an even distribution of space on both sides of the glass structure.
Unique construction
The atrium’s twelve elevators give guests remarkable views of the inside and outside of the building as they move between the cavities. As one of the world’s leading hotels, the interiors of the Morpheus required its guests to do justice. At the same time, its exoskeleton optimizes the interior by creating spaces that are not supported by load-bearing walls or columns.
The world’s first freeform high-rise exoskeleton has a rich pattern of structural elements at lower levels. This forms a leaky grid made of lighter elements on the top. Morpheus is based on many years of research at the ZHA on the integration of inside and outside, civil and private, solid and empty, Cartesian and Einsteinian. The space is interwoven throughout the structure in order to combine disparate design concepts. A constantly modern architectural style with unique compositions can be achieved using such a room design on many levels.
The project manager Viviana Muscettola explains that Morpheus primarily combines its specific arrangement with structural integrity and sculptural form. The design is fascinating as it does not refer to traditional architectural typologies. Macau’s building is above all a modern architecture that has been referenced from all over the world. For this reason, the Morpheus Hotel has emerged as a new modern architectural style thanks to its unique surroundings. Therefore, its comprehensive parametric model combines all the aesthetic and structural requirements of today’s architectural styles. In this regard, the hotel is radically changing the way we plan our built landscapes in the future.