Located in the south of Pudong’s Lujiazui, this new five-star JW Marriott Marquis hotel and conference center will be the first of its kind in China, and will establish a new landmark for the city of Shanghai. The design responds to the project’s constraints and the owner’s vision for a unique destination, leveraging its relationship to the Huangpu River to create an inspiring guest experience.

The 39-story building also harmonizes with the surrounding environment. The placement of the hotel tower accommodates the sunlight requirements of the adjacent residences to the northeast. The reception area and other public amenities surround a dramatic central atrium, which serves as the nexus of the guest experience, as well as the major organizing element for the exterior surroundings. A triangular facade at the drop-off plaza links the atrium to the adjacent public park, which opens to the riverfront. This forms an uninterrupted connection between the entrance and the river, framing views of the lobby, the park, the river, and the Bund beyond.

The folded curtain wall profile creates a unique and novel exterior expression that lends the entire building a distinctive character. The podium, clad in brushed anodized aluminum panels that are subtly varied, uses a similar language of folded and tapered surfaces that gradually densify as they travel down to the ground, lending a human scale to the base of the building.

Within this context, the gently sloping sides of the atrium amplify the vocabulary of the exterior form at a grand scale. Responding to this soaring volume, the west facade pulls gently inward, emphasizing the significance of this space and creating a natural entry point that faces the park and the river beyond. In this way, the tower embraces its site and establishes a distinctive presence within the dense urban fabric of Shanghai.