“Intercontinental Shimao Shanghai Wonderland” Luxury Hotel Project in China, by Atkins

An abandoned water-filled quarry located 30 miles from Shanghai is about to be transformed into a 380-room luxury hotel. The site is called Songjiang and the project is to be engineered by Atkins, one of the world’s leading engineering and design consultancies.

Construction is already under way. The hotel should open its doors in early 2015. The leisure resort will host extreme sports facilities, a visitor centre and a five-star luxury hotel with two levels of the hotel situated under water, housing a restaurant and guestrooms facing a ten-metre deep aquarium. An extreme sports centre for activities such as rock climbing and bungee jumping will be cantilevered over the quarry and accessed by special lifts from the water level of the hotel.


Atkins is providing architecture, structural and civil engineering services. Sustainability is integral to the design solution that includes the use of green roofing and exploits the site’s geothermal heat to generate electricity and heating. A naturally-lit internal atrium incorporates the existing rock face, with its waterfalls and green vegetation.