Author’s Room Hotel

The author’s room Hotel project is located in Aranya Jiulong Lake, Guangzhou, conceived as a hybrid cultural space developed for the cultural brand naive IMAGINIST. The project integrates a bookstore, café and light dining, and accommodation into a single, cohesive destination. Jiulong Lake is a one-hour drive from downtown Guangzhou and is surrounded by 1.67 km² of pristine mountain forest and lake landscapes. The building is situated on the eastern riverside of the town, backed by expansive views of mountains and the lake, while remaining adjacent to the community art museum and canteen. Within this unique context—where urban vitality and natural serenity coexist—the design seeks to weave local culture into the spatial narrative, creating a cultural environment that is warm and emotive.

Starting from Lingnan culture, the initial inspiration is drawn from the Qi Lou of Guangzhou’s old city—a building typology characterised by ground-floor retails and upper-floor residences, connected through a continuous colonnade that integrates commerce, living, and circulation. It’s not only a witness to the prosperous commercial culture of Guangzhou, but also the foundation of residents’ daily lives, and is an epitome of Lingnan local lifestyle.

As a multi-functional space, author’s room Hotel adopts the spatial sequence of ground-floor retail and upperfloor residence, recalling the traditional Qi Lou typology. The building is organised into four levels: the ground floor functions as a publicly accessible common space, accommodating a bookstore, café, and light dining, while Levels 2 to 4 are dedicated to hotel guestrooms. The entire structure is articulated beneath a continuous colonnade, which mediates between interior spaces and the surrounding public realm. Rather than defining the façade with solid walls or any other hard edges, a series of polygonal columns establishes a semi-outdoor colonnade, blurring the boundary between inside and outside.

The linear grid consists of the columns, beams, and slabs that play both roles of the visual language and the structural framework. By deliberately exposing the peripheral structural system, the design enables the external form to directly reflect the internal logic of construction, allowing structure, space, and appearance to converge into a coherent architectural language.

The colonnade establishes a spatial dialogue between solid and void, opening the architecture to imagination and use. Beneath the colonnade unfolds a fluid and animated spatial field—one that invites sunlight and breeze, accommodates seasonal change, and defines a soft threshold between interior and exterior. It becomes an active setting for urban daily life. Retails on the ground floor are set back, creating a continuous public pedestrian zone along the street. Passersby drifting through the neighbourhood wander beneath the colonnade and are gently drawn into the bookstore and café.

The upper floors are divided by columns into 18 guest rooms facing the river view. Shaded terraces under the eaves allow guests to engage with the river landscape, fostering a close connection to nature. In terms of functions, the colonnade acts as a secondary architectural skin, providing shade and shelter in response to local subtropical and changeable climate, as well as filtering views from across the river, balancing openness with privacy for the guestrooms.

Another feature of the building is its stepped, terraced design, in which four stacked volumes gradually step back as the structure rises, creating a powerful, hierarchical shape that has a changing silhouette when viewed from different angles. Moreover, the terraced configuration also visually reduces the perceived mass, contributing to a more comfortable and human-scaled presence along the shoreline.

Design: B.L.U.E. Architecture Studio
Photography: Xia Zhi, DONG Image, The Wethos