News: Zaha Hadid and Norman Foster have been selected to design high-rise hotels in China for Jumeirah Group.
The hotel company, which forms part of investment group Dubai Holding, chose London architecture firms Zaha Hadid Architects and Foster + Partners to design two of three new resorts proposed in Nanjing, Wuhan and Haikou.
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Hadid’s design for the 250-room Jumeirah Nanjing hotel takes the form of two curving towers accompanied by a third low-rise structure.
Located in the Hexi business district, the complex will include a business conference centre, a fitness suite, an indoor swimming pool and a ballroom, and is set for completion in 2016.
Over in Wuhan, Foster’s firm has designed a mixed-use city-centre development just outside the Hankou business district. As well as a 200-room luxury hotel, Jumeirah Wuhan will comprise offices, shops and apartments, all scheduled to open in 2020.
The third new resort, Jumeirah Haikou, will boast a 140-room hotel and 60 private villas on a 136-hectare private island in Hainan Province.
With a setting described by Jumeirah Group as the «Hawaii of China», the complex will feature buildings designed by Kuala Lumpur-based hotel specialist Denniston International and a golf course by American designer Tom Doak.
The three hotel developments will join Jumeirah’s growing international portfolio, which currently includes 22 resorts in the Middle East, Europe and Asia.
Company president and CEO Gerald Lawless said China was «a significant market for Jumeirah».
«We are honoured to have been asked to operate these three new hotels in key cities, bringing our pipeline of new properties in China to eight, in addition to Jumeirah Himalayas Hotel in Shanghai,» he said, referring to a hotel completed in 2011 by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki.
