The Shimao Wonderland Intercontinental hotel has opened within a 88-metre-deep abandoned quarry near Shanghai.
Designed by London- and Shanghai based Jade + QA, the 337-room hotel descends 16 storeys below ground level within the former quarry and is described by the studio as a groundscraper.

Architect Martin Jochman created the concept for the quarry hotel while working for Aecom and it won a competition in 2006. He later established his own studio Jade + QA, where he carried on the design.
"The concept for the building was inspired by the quarry itself and by its natural environment needing to be finely balanced with the new development following the using the Tao principles of yin yang," Jochman told Dezeen.

The steel-framed building is attached to a cliff face on one side of the excavated water-filled quarry, with only two storeys rising above ground level and the lowest two floors descending below the water level. Rooms are wrapped around the walls of the quarry, with a "glass waterfall" structure containing the building's observation lifts and giving access to all the floors.

"There are three principal elements of the building massing derived from the character of the site and its location, said Jochman.
"The 'green hill'; the two storey green roof covered part of the building above ground level, the 'hanging gardens'; convex and concave S-shaped guest room wings; and the central glass 'waterfall'."
Photo is by Jade+QA
The ...