Zenstay Boutique Hotel

Zenstay Boutique Hotel is the ideal home for a post-80s couple on Dongji Island, the eastern end of mainland China, a original stone house on a hillside. Watching tides rise and fall, weathered by time and elements, stone houses create the rustic island culture and the beauty of years.





Based on local dwelling and natural texture, the reconstruction project aimed at improving quality of living for visitors by generating functional spaces satisfy both needs of traditional culture and modern experience under the seemingly dramatically opposite old and new architectural forms. While preserving the original structure to the largest extent, novel white blocks were inserted to establish continuity between detached public spaces. At the same time, atrium and staircase offered a smooth transition between the old and new and with a purpose to strengthen the harmonious and stable of the place.





In fact, most border islands have two sides of extremes — the cultural enclaves locked in the past and the hot spots for literary youth. Natural, traditional or fashion, postmodern would be conflicting and symbiotic. The design of Zenstay Boutique Hotel has both traditional and novel aspects as well, trying to cater the functional and scene requirements from its two aspects with a sincere and simple attitude.





Thanks to the project, we explored the traditional stone house in island to construct skills as an appropriate technology (low tech), regional cultural of reference, its interventional reconstruction of the possibility and its sustainable idea of the necessity and reflection. By the protection of the original fabric and the innovation of the new format, we turned the old stone house of the rural island into a rebirth.