About
"We works for present in the future." Various Associates’s design philosophy centers on rational optimization across architecture, space, products, and concepts, aiming to crafting an original and exciting experience. The studio engages in the design and research of high-quality, experimental projects. Starting with the programs of space, VA adopts forward-looking perspectives, conduct material research, employ open thinking, challenge conventions, and focus on details and refined quality to create unique value for each project. Every project crafted by Various Associates features its own distinct spatial identity. Additionally, as a collaborative platform for artists and designers, Various Associates seeks to merge creativity and technology to explore the past, present, and future, pushing the boundaries of design creation.
As a creative design studio, Various Associates continually explores and creates new possibilities. Its design services encompass commercial and retail spaces, F&B, exhibition spaces (for cities, enterprises, and cultural and fashion purposes), complexes, hotels, schools, public buildings, single-family houses, urban planning, and more. It strives to propose new solutions from fundamental and energy consumption perspectives, including material research, product R&D, and design. Cross-disciplinary cooperation remains a key direction for Various Associates. So far, it has won numerous prestigious international design awards, and its works have been frequently featured in various professional media outlets worldwide, including FRAME, Domus, Wallpaper, Archdaily, Designboom, and gooood, etc.
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Edition beach club
Location:Sanya, China
Client: The Sanya Edition
Project category: architecture design
A modern beach journey
EDITION, luxury boutique hotel brand affiliated to MARRIOTT, entrusted Various Associates to upgrade the beach club of its first hotel opened in China, known as The Sanya EDITION.
Located at the picturesque Haitang Bay, The Sanya EDITION enjoys a first-class beach and a fascinating sea view. Together with natural coconut groves, it creates a strong vibe unique to Hainan and brings unprecedented leisure experience for the guests. As every EDITION hotel embraces local aesthetic features, they're distinguished from each other while all sharing an iconic brand identity. The aesthetics of The Sanya EDITION is defined by lush greenery, textured materials in original colors, and soft lighting.
As Various Associates took on the project, the primary consideration was how to create a tasteful, cozy and relaxing venue for socializing while incorporating the inviting natural landscape of Sanya and the aesthetics of EDITION into the design.
Through low-impact design interventions, the new structures blend with the existing landscapes and protected trees on the site, and echo the expansive, azure Haitang Bay across the coconut groves. The beach club "grows" from a site enclosed by the existing plants, which are the soul of the new space.
The hotel sought creative design strategies, with the hope to refresh and activate the serene, slightly deserted outdoor beach area whilst introducing young, fashionable lifestyle and socializing activities, so as to turn it into a landmark in Haitang Bay and even in the wider city.
The renewed beach club provides a strong connection among different activity areas in the surroundings, and forms a rendezvous brimming with vigor and joy. Bar goers, guests taking a sunbath, swimmers and volleyball players are not visually blocked from each other. The open space allows the users to throw themselves into a passionate vibe without taking away the sense of boundary that keeps them comfortable.
"Under the Tree" is the design concept of the project. It conveys the design team's intention to create a comfortable, unrestrained space. The continuous bamboo-woven structures consist of five overlapping tree-like canopies with different heights and forms. Their organic and natural curved profiles merge beautifully into the lush nature.
Every "tree" canopy features a curvy form. The clustering canopy structures form beautiful and continuous lines that generate a well-arranged spatial rhythm that blends into nature. To ensure a pure visual effect, every structure is presented as an independent work of bamboo weaving, which took days of on-site work by multiple experienced craftsmen.
The new "tree" canopy structures utilize the craft of bamboo weaving, which carries the typical impression on tropical cities. The design team chose natural and locally sourced materials, to represent the island city and enable the new outdoor structures to adapt to natural changes.
The tightly interwoven bamboo structures allow sunshine to penetrate through in the daytime. When lights are turned on at night, the steel skeleton wrapped in bamboo strips, which stretches like the patterns of a leaf, reveal themselves to the guests, and render the canopy into a giant banana leaf when one looks up, conveying a sense of poetry and revealing the beauty of the structure.
The unique color and texture of bamboo-woven structures are coupled with diffusing light to create a night vibe that the hotel appreciates, and add a touch of romance and warmth to the space.
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