Hong Kong-based design firm Remedios Studio is working in collaboration with wellness hospitality and spa design firm A.W. Lake on a new spa to be located in the Guardian Art Centre Beijing, China – the project that has been masterplanned by Büro Ole Scheeren.

Expected to open in Q1 2017, the 120-bedroom hotel called Puxuan Beijing Hotel & Spa is being constructed within the new home of auction house China Guardian. The Urban Resort Concept-operated hotel will have views of the Forbidden City – the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming dynasty to the end of the Qing dynasty. Other facilities planned at the site include a museum, courtyard, event space and several restaurants.

Owned by Beijing Huangdu Real Estate Development, the hotel's URSpa will span 1,000sq m (10,764sq ft) across two floors. The spa journey begins with a signature heat experience, including a quick body scrub or stretching movement exercises with a therapist to get the body warm in preparation for a massage.

The interior design of the hotel has also been conceptualised by Remedios Studio. Minutes away from Beijing’s main commercial and shopping district, the hotel will house two restaurants.

A.W. Lake is also collaborating on another project with operator Urban Resort Concept for a URSpa in Xiamen China.

Büro Ole Scheeren’s design for the Guardian Art Centre has sought to inscribe the building into the surrounding context, fusing history and tradition with a contemporary vision for the future of a cultural art space. The ‘pixelated’ volumes of the lower portion of the building are designed to echo the grain, coloyr and scale of Beijing’s hutongs (narrow alleys), while the upper portion of the building responds to the larger scale of the surrounding contemporary city.

“I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to design this Art Center, which allows me to pay tribute to a country and city
where I have now worked for over a decade,” said Ole Scheeren.

“The building is located at a historic site that holds special significance to China, at an intersection of two streets,
and two worlds: Beijing’s most famous commercial street Wangfujing and Wusi Dajie, the site where the New Cultural Movement originated after the Qing Dynasty.

"It explicitly pays respect to its context and location but also comes to embody the nature of an auction house at the intersection of culture and commerce.”