Dwellings | Changsha: Finding Peach Blossom Land by the Lake

Along Meixi Lake in Changsha, super-high-rises stand shoulder to shoulder. The Wellesley is the last lakeside hotel on this shore, facing Zaha Hadid's Meixi Lake Art Centre across the water.

Rather than build one more tower, the architects broke the hotel into houses of different sizes, threaded together by courtyards, like a village hidden in a dense city block. The interiors are by HOUPAL: grey brick, dark timber, ramie and rattan draw guests inward layer by layer. By the fireplace in the lobby lounge sits a pair of chairs from Dak Haan.

Zhixing Architects borrowed the path from Tao Yuanming's Peach Blossom Spring: "At first it was very narrow, just wide enough for one person. After a few dozen steps, it suddenly opened up." The drop-off has only a plain doorway, no grand porte-cochère. Grey brick forms a long, narrow entry; light comes through the gaps in the brickwork, the door slowly opens, and walking in becomes a way of slowing down.

Screens step back one after another; warm lightboxes mix with daylight, and dark timber keeps the whole mellow and restrained.

Past the passage, a twenty-metre courtyard unrolls like a landscape scroll. Floor-to-ceiling glass takes in the whole garden, ramie curtains soften the light, and the furniture sits low and loose, easing a body that has been travelling all day.

The bar is cut and shaped from a single block of natural stone; the lightbox behind it is etched with a broken-down bamboo motif. Fine meets rough, the tones are kept dark, and people grow quiet on their own.

Overhead, an installation shaped like bamboo slips recalls the history of Hunan; a full-width window and a sunken layout let inside and outside wrap around each other. By the fire stand a pair of black Xiaoyuan Lounge Chairs. Xiaoyuan is a 2020 design by Zhou Anbin, named after Xiaoyuan New Village, the neighbourhood where he once lived. The chair wraps the sitter from both sides and its back tilts gently; sink in, face the fire and the garden, and time slows.

The corridor narrows and the tea room recedes into the depths, waiting to be discovered. By the window sits a leather armchair, its dark timber frame and brown leather in the same tones as the paper screens and wooden walls.

In the restaurant, lamps shaped like open books cast a soft glow. The courtyard restaurant is approached through a series of level changes; after a few turns the view opens, and steam rises from the hearth where tea is brewed.

In the banquet hall, a large light membrane hides its source in texture, and grilles line up like the ribs of a ship, so the whole hall becomes a skiff floating before the lake.

Rattan is set into the walls; dark marble and wood grain set a steady tone. The timber is warm to the touch, the light shifts softly, and the world outside fades without your noticing.

The television that would normally face the bed has been removed and replaced by a full-width window; the sofa sits beside it, and the lake through the seasons becomes the room's backdrop. Rattan, treated in different ways, forms finishes and partitions, and warm light filters through the membrane and the weave.

To break away from the usual double-loaded hotel corridor, the public areas were divided into houses of varying sizes interwoven with courtyards. The landscape that unfolds before guests is not only something to look at, but a village to walk into and explore.