design et al are pleased to announce that the Hotel Le Passage Mohkan Shan has been shortlisted for the Asia-Pacific Hotel under 50 rooms Award at this year’s International Hotel & Property Awards.
Le Passage Mohkan Shan is a French luxury country house hotel in an idyllic tea plantation among the bamboo forests of Moganshan, China. The architecture and design of Le Passage Mohkan Shan was all about creating the European feel of a luxury country house hotel in the inside married with blending into the local features, countryside and architectural style of Moganshan mountain. Moganshan was once the getaway and playground of Shanghai’s high society in the 1930’s and today, Le Passage Mohkan Shan is reviving that rich history.
The brief was to create a project that was in perfect harmony with the tea plantation it resides on, while creating an interior that oozes style, comfort and character from the local area. It’s 40 hotel rooms are spread among a central building and three outlying buildings, and the vision was to create the comforts and feel of quality inside blended with the local beauty outside. So all the rooms are spacious with high ceilings, oversized bathrooms, antique wood floors, and tall windows decorated with white wooden blinds. Elegant period adornments are found throughout, from handmade cement tile floors with intricate designs to white marble counters, brass fixtures, and large hand-woven rugs.
The brief was also to deliver a property that was energy efficient and in touch with the environment while using a huge range of locally sourced reclaimed materials so it would blend into the mountain. The building needed to look like it belonged in Moganshan, and it does. The entire project includes a heated outdoor pool, two restaurants, lounge bar, banqueting room, activity centre and the 40 rooms all looking across the bamboo forest and tea plantation. The marriage of modern with old, of integrating materials and techniques from the surrounding area in the past and giving them a new lease of life in the hotel. The wooden floors and beams, roof tiles, stone masonary, carpentry etc all takes reclaimed materials from the surrounding mountain and area and has updated them to today with a little touch of luxury. You can see this throughout the hotel.
The hotel used local and regional suppliers to make bespoke parts for the project that had the environment and energy conservation at its heart. There is low-emission glass on the windows, while the fibreglass and autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC) blocks of the walls ensure the highest degree of thermal insulation significantly reducing the heating and cooling load of the buildings. The woodwork, like windows and doors have all been made by carpenters, bespoke furniture, linen, and textiles sourced on the whole by local contractors. This was all key to making the look feel part of the local environment.
The design really reflects local design on the mountain of Moganshan. It takes that design as inspiration and respects it in the exterior so that it is in harmony with the tea plantations and bamboo forest that surround it. Inside, the French country elegance interior detailing exudes that real sense of home. The hotel has also been built so that guests experience as much as they can of the setting and views. Throughout the hotel views are available of the mountain and surrounding forests so you are always in the presence of nature.
