High above Sanya’s popular beach-front resorts, and nestled in tropical hills at the entry to a mountainous nature preserve, this innovative hybrid community combines tourism with residential development and environmental sensitivity.
The two attractions – a Water Park and a Tropical Rainforest - occupy the lower slopes and are linked by a river walk that meanders through the Town Center. The attractions are anchored by theme hotels that both use iconic pyramidal massing, but in distinctly different ways – the Water Park Hotel has a sleek exterior and breath-taking water sides, while the Rainforest Hotel evokes a hillside landform overgrown by exotic jungle plants. Three clusters of hillside housing occupy only twenty percent of site, and are linked by a contour road and trolley route that ends in a Mountain Park that is connected by cable car to a hilltop outlook that marks the highpoint of the Site.
The balance of the site, in the hilly middle ground, contains a lake and beach, and the isolated mountainous character of the site is reinforced by retaining as much of the existing vegetation as possible, and by limiting development is to a boutique Hotel, a Clubhouse, and a Li Village. The village celebrates the culture of the indigenous Li people, and is designed to echo the thatched-roof architecture for which they are famous.