With China experiencing large-scale reconstruction throughout the country, a great deal of its historic architecture is being replaced by uniform rows of bland, new buildings. As a result, cities are losing their individual identities and many of their old neighborhoods, The Waterhouse at South Bund, however, offers a more promising approach to redevelopment with its avant-garde design injecting new ideas into the boutique-hotel marketplace.  By recycling an existing building and adding modern elements to it, the project creates an “old bottle with new wine” kind of experience for hotel guests.

The Waterhouse hotel fronts the Huangpu River and looks across at the gleaming Pudong skyline. Located by the new Cool Docks development on the South Bund District of Shanghai, the Waterhouse is a four-story, 19-room boutique hotel residing in an existing three-story Japanese Army headquarters building from the 1930’s.