Design of a 5 Star Hotel, Kaptai, Bangladesh

Project idea

The project, which is located next to the picturesque Kaptai Lake in Chittagong, Bangladesh, is based on the dynamic interaction between land and water. The hotel investigates how architecture may serve as a bridge where water and earth interact, both literally and figuratively. The design, which blurs the lines between solid and flowing and constructed and unbuilt, gradually flows toward the lake after emerging from the earth, drawing inspiration from the slow changes seen in natural environments. By highlighting the connection between solid ground and flowing water, the goal is to create an architectural experience in which the created form blends seamlessly with the surrounding natural landscape.

Project description

The Hotel at Kaptai Lake is designed to be a hospitality destination that perfectly complements its distinctive geographic location on the serene beaches of Rangamati, Bangladesh's Kaptai Lake. The project incorporates natural features to provide visitors a harmonious and immersive sensory experience, which is based on the architectural concept of the link between land and water.
Inspired by the sturdiness of earth and the flow of water, the architectural design creates a created environment that purposefully blurs the lines between natural and artificial environments. While keeping structural integrity with the earth, the hotel mimics the rhythm and flow of the water via the use of organic shapes, tiered buildings, floating platforms, and transitional spaces.
The lake's natural beauty is preserved through minimum intrusions in the design, which also aims to respect and improve the surrounding topography. Open decks, pathways, viewing platforms, and waterfront lounges that capture the tranquility and cultural background of the location enable visitors to interact with the area.
Private, semi-public, and public zones progressively move from the solid landmass toward the lake's fluid border in this tiered system of massing. The architectural form is extended into nature through wet courtyards, stepping terraces, and floating decks, making the lake a part of the whole spatial experience. Perforated terracotta, bamboo, and local stone are examples of materials that assist passive climate measures while reinforcing the vernacular character.

Technical information

The project's technical specifications demonstrate a careful blending of design with the site's natural features and character at Kaptai Lake. Because the hotel is located on a slope that slowly slopes into the water, a hybrid structural system is needed, with pile-supported platforms for structures that stretch over the lake and concrete slab foundations for buildings on land. To create environmental harmony while guaranteeing sustainability and simplicity of care, locally obtained materials including stone, bamboo, glass, and wood are used. By emphasizing natural ventilation and passive cooling, the building's orientation and layout reduce the need for mechanical equipment. While deep overhangs and shading mechanisms provide protection from tropical sun and rain, large glass apertures optimize sunshine and capture expansive vistas of the lake. The usage of solar energy, rainwater collection, and native planting all serve to further emphasize the project's ecologically conscious methodology. While circulation routes, both internal and external, are intended to lead visitors through a sequence of spatial experiences that blur the line between built space and natural setting, embodying the project's central idea—the correlation of land and water—functional zoning divides private accommodation areas, public gathering spaces, and service cores.