YU Hotel is located in East Fuxing Road, Shanghai, China, next to Yu Garden, so it took its name “Yu Hotel” to echo Yu Garden. It was designed by the architectural firm Shanghai Ben Zhe Architecture Design, under the direction of Huajian Jiang.
It has an area of 678 square meters composed of four old buildings that were narrow, small and with inadequate lighting inside. The key to the renovation project is the spatial restructuring and bring the sunlight and nature to the interior space that used to be narrow and dark. After more than half a year, the designers reconstructed and converted the old place into the new complex, whose interior is connected to the outside with a courtyard interspersed between them.
Originally it was an old hostel / chess and card room. With the changes of times and urban renewal, the owner wanted to change the new meaning of B&B on the basis of reinforcing the existing structure.
The relationships between culture, nature and architecture were resolved during the design process with the purpose of integrating them together. At the entrance, we can see a wall built with black bricks that serve as a transition between the openness and the privacy of the interior space.
