Dominating the Cotai Strip’s skyline, the Morpheus Hotel, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, stands tall as the centerpiece of the City of Dreams in Cotai Strip, Macau, China. Marking the dawn of a new style of architecture, the Morpheus Hotel is a unique composition of steel and glass, all encased in an elegant white diagrid shell. The Morpheus Hotel was developed as a tower-like never before, authentic to its time and place and embodying a vision like no other.

The Backstory – The Client, The Architect, and Their Collaboration

In 2012, the CEO of Melco Crown Entertainment, Mr. Lawrence Ho, approached Zaha Hadid right away with a proposal to design a concept for a hotel tower in the City of Dreams Macau that would be owned and operated by Melco Crown Entertainment. Mr. Ho had a clear vision regarding the hotel, as it was the first time that Melco owned and operated a hotel. With a foresight for the success of their new initiative, Mr. Ho craved innovation, desired a building that represented their corporation’s ambitious plans for the future, and wished for a flagship Hotel building in the City of Dreams, Macau. 

Zaha Hadid Architects, known for their futuristic approach and exclusive designs, communicated their perspective on the project in the first meeting itself. The Project Director, Viviana Muscettola, conveyed that the practice was determined to craft something unique, overlooking precedents. The practice refused to follow the architectural tradition of designing by seeking inspiration from precedents, as they didn’t want to be left with another Las Vegas-style hotel. The architects intended to create a complete, self-sufficient destination for the guests and a visual treat for the tourists of Macau, drawing them towards the hotel, which they communicated to the client precisely and early on.

While architects only have the potential to conceptualize groundbreaking designs way ahead of their time, it is the clients who commission the architects who have the authority and resources to invest in realizing these experimental concepts that, upon successful completion, end up being a portal to a new architectural style. In the case of Morpheus Hotel, the Zaha Hadid Architects also produced a couple of designs in front of Mr. Lawrence Ho. But, it was Mr. Ho who picked a futuristic conceptual design that adorns the City of Dreams today.

The collaboration of two visionary parties, the ZHA and the Melco Crown Entertainment, not only resulted in the futuristic design of the Morpheus Hotel but also marked the beginning of a new architectural style of hospitality and entertainment buildings in Macau.

Understanding the Site and the Context of Hotel Morpheus

The site and the broader context of the City of Dreams, Macau, played a significant role in the conceptualization and development of the Morpheus Hotel as a high-end hospitality and entertainment facility. Macau, a former Portuguese colony governed by China today, is a gaming and entertainment center drawing tourists from all over the world. Also named the ‘Las Vegas of the East’, it is an abode of world-class mega-casino resorts hosting premier hotel towers and other ancillary luxurious facilities.  

The City of Dreams, developed by Melco Resorts & Entertainment Limited, is an integrated entertainment, hospitality, and shopping resort center in the region of Cotai, Macau. The City of Dreams Macau hosts a casino, two theatres, a shopping district, 20 restaurants, and four hotels. 

The City of Dream features the impressive five-star hotel Nuwa, the world-renowned Grand Hyatt Macau, and the iconic Morpheus Hotel, the flagship project of Melco, offering premium accommodation facilities. The exclusive facilities of the City of Dreams resort, from the House of Dancing Water, the SOHO, and the Para nightclub to the Kid’s City and the Boulevard, offer a wholesome shopping and entertainment experience to visitors. 

The Design Philosophy, the Brain Behind the Beauty

The top-tier surroundings of the context, the client’s future plan for the project, and the architectural firm’s perspective on the project shaped the design philosophy. The collaboration between futuristic architectural practice and the forward-looking client laid the cornerstone for the design philosophy and conceptual approach. The project’s design philosophy was to develop an exceptional building in terms of form, interiors, and the overall ambiance which the tourists would come to catch a glimpse of. It was such a bold move to bypass the traditional hotel architecture and design a hotel tower like never before. 

The project has garnered both acclaim and criticism for its tabula-rasa approach, its original design with no reference to precedents of the same typology, and its disregard for the culture and traditions of Macau. However, the core intention behind this tabula-rasa approach, or as a matter of fact the whole design philosophy was to mark the beginning and embark on ‘a new style of architecture for this century’ and for Macau, which already housed several buildings that mimicked other regional architectural styles.

From Constraints to Concepts

Owing to the design philosophy, the first step towards the form development was to unite the podium and tower, creating a continuous façade rather than the traditional way of letting the tower rise from a visually disparate podium, leaving an awkward elevation behind. It was believed that moving away from the traditional method in this one aspect would significantly alter the façade and give the pedestrians a cohesive view of the tower from ground to top.  

The architects were barely given a brief, but they had to etch out a gross floor area of 150,000 square meters from a plot measuring 99 meters by 52 meters, and due to the proximity of the airport, the height was restrained up to 160 meters. Moreover, the architects were not given a barren land to work on. The foundation for a rectangular condominium tower that didn’t see completion was already laid on the site. Though these constraints seem to restrict the form and spatial programming of the skyscraper, the end result form of the Morpheus hotel tower was nothing less than excellent, leaving the audience and visitors awe-struck. 

Comprehending the Form and its development

The form of the Morpheus Hotel embodies and reflects the design philosophy and concept that it was built on. As the form appears post-completion, the 160-meter-high Morpheus Hotel seems to be two distinct 42-story tall towers positioned symmetrically at the ends of the site and connected at the ground level and roof level in addition to organic asymmetrical bridges that link the towers at various points, leaving behind organic punctures in the façade that adds to its eccentricity.

A rectangular extrusion of the unbuilt condominium tower’s foundation defines the first phase of form development, followed by carving out three free-form irregularly shaped voids informed by China’s rich traditions of jade carving and finally encompassing the whole entity emphasizing the form and unifying all the spaces in the tower in a white diagrid framework defines the hotel’s form development.

It is appreciable that the architects managed to carve out voids of the solid mass despite the constraining site conditions and a specified gross floor area. These organic cavities cutting through the north-south facades add balance and lightness to the otherwise heavy geometric cuboidal mass, instilling a sense of elegance.

The Voids, The Captivating Cavities of the Tower

The voids are essentially a striking feature of the Morpheus Hotel Tower, rightly termed ‘urban windows’ by the architects, significantly altering the experience indoors and from an urban point of view, fulfilling the individuality and uniqueness promised in the conceptual phase. 

Accompanied by the exquisite glass enclosure besides lighting up the interiors of the hotel suites and the atrium, the voids awaken the curiosity of the visitors by creating dramatic interior spaces and providing partial glimpses of the communal spaces in the building, the interesting diagrid structure, and the vibrant Macau city rather than conventional mediocre urban views alone. 

The voids ensure that the guests in the public spaces like the restaurants and lounges appreciate the urban views of the city of Macau and enjoy an exclusive experience crafted by the undulating glass façades of the organic voids wrapped in the white exoskeleton. Further, the voids increase the external façade area, maximizing the number of hotel rooms that have access to stunning views of both the atrium and the city.

Macau Morpheus Hotel Exoskeleton, An Architectural Perspective

The unique exoskeleton is a free-form parametrically designed external diagrid structural system that rises from the ground level as a network of interlocking intricate structural members that lose density on progressively moving up. 

The exoskeleton is a combination of the actual steel structural system clad in approximately 60,000 square meters of flat, single-curved, and double-curved aluminum sheets. The exoskeleton derives its curved organic around the freeform area formed by the voids from the white aluminum cladding, while the structural steel remains planar. 

Morpheus, being an ambitious project, required flexible interior spaces to accommodate the distinct ultra-luxurious temporal amenities. Owing to this fact, the exoskeleton was an appropriate choice as it optimizes the interior space, leaving it column-free to satisfy the changing needs of the Morpheus. 

Further, the exoskeleton, upon reaching the summit, wraps the inner facades of the guest villas overlooking the sunken pool at level 40, adding to a cozy feeling in the courtyard and enriching the experience.

The Spatial Programming of Macau Morpheus Hotel

Analyzing the ground floor interface of the Morpheus Hotel, it is bound by the retail street or the boulevard of the City of Dreams on the southern side and the entrance porte cochere on the northern side. Unlike the usual towers that accommodate a space underneath a cantilevered protruding slab as a drop-off and entrance, the Morpheus Hotel tower incorporates an integrated porte cochere without breaking the cohesiveness of the form. Serving as the first impression after the splendid form of the tower, the seamlessly articulated porte cochere symbolically utters the luxury and the opulence that the interiors offer.

Upon entering, the visitors are amused by the posh 35 to 40-meter-high atrium featuring the finest interior elements, including ceilings, pavilions, and pieces of furniture specifically designed for the Hotel, serving as a continuation of the graceful exteriors. At the ground level, the hotel hosts the main reception, a flexible installation space, and an exclusive Morpheus lounge, patisserie, and bar underneath a pavilion mimicking the external diagrid exoskeleton and two lift lobbies, each accommodating six panoramic lifts on either side of the entrance. 

The lower floors of the Morpheus integrated the three-level podium of the City of Dreams seamlessly into its structure. Moving vertically from the ground floor, the Morpheus features an entire floor of gaming area featuring the Li Ying Club, restaurants including the L’Attitude, the Allain Ducasse at Morpheus, and the Voyages on the third floor offering a culinary retreat and other ancillary services.

The Morpheus houses a myriad of 770 guest accommodations ranging from premier to ultra-luxurious, from 58 square meters to 580 square meters large, including several rooms, suites, villas, duplex villas, pool villas, and Skytop pool villas. The Sky Bridges house restaurant Yi on the 21st floor and Morpheus Club lounge on the 30th floor, in addition to the fitness club, a spa providing a transcending experience, an art gallery on the 23rd floor, and an open-air pool on the 40th level.  

The Morpheus, A Treasure Trove of Eternal Exploratory Experiences

Again, the idea of crafting the hotel as a ‘true destination’ was accomplished via an interesting circulation pattern, a journey that throws surprises at the visitors. Starting from the atrium at the entrance on either side of which a set of glass elevators traversing through the height of the tower provide glimpses of the structure to the connecting bridges that host the restaurants, and finally, the pool in the sunken terrace at level 40, all serve as places of exploration throughout the tower for all guests. 

As explained by the architectural firm, scooping out the central mass of the building was essential in presenting the Hotel as a ‘place of continual discovery’ and encouraging the guests to explore within the hotel while staying in the hotel as opposed to the regular norm of moving out for sight-seeing.

The Sculptural Morpheus, A Remarkable Engineering Feat

The actualization of the sculptural form of Morpheus pushing boundaries was attainable only due to the advancement in the parametric architecture modeling technology, the collaboration of professionals from various disciplines, and their innovative interventions. The structural and façade engineering team of the Buro Happold Limited collaborated with Zaha Hadid Architects to develop and install the façade and the exoskeleton in place.

Unlike simple projects, acquainting structural engineers with just 2-dimensional data wouldn’t suffice in the case of Morpheus due to its intricate geometry. The Buro Happold team worked on a 3-dimensional model of Morpheus right from the beginning to facilitate the understanding, fabrication, and construction of this complex geometry.

The engineers were dependent on Rhino3D CAD for the geometric modeling of the structure and employed Grasshopper visual programming language for analysis. After a thorough study, the team agreed on a group of parameters to be set, including aligning the nodes of the exoskeleton horizontally with the floor-edge beam and ensuring that the stub beams lie horizontally and perpendicular to the façade. The stub beams are structural members that transfer loads from the exoskeleton and the concrete core of the towers by protruding out from the nodes and passing through the façade to connect to the floor beams.

The parametric modeling assisted the façade designers to come up with an appropriate façade system to establish this inhabitable sculpture in reality. Over thirty façade types were designed, fabricated, and installed to bring years of effort to fruition. The simplest of all façade types, the hotel guest room’s facades were constructed using flat glazing and a unitized system. On the building corners, a unitized system of single curved glass panels was mounted. 

The interesting façade system was installed in the ‘free-form area’ or the atrium and sky bridges where there were no floor slabs to connect the façade system. Hence, the façade systems were anchored to the exoskeleton, which required that the exoskeleton was fixed in place before the façade was installed. Triangulated and faceted glazing systems supported by both unitized and stick systems were mounted on the exoskeleton in such areas.

Besides the painstaking process of designing these facades with geometrical constraints, it was essential to ensure that the building withstood strong winds, even typhoons, and was free of damage due to rainfall, taking into consideration the climate of the site. From design to fabrication and final installation, it took two long years of intense labor and coordination to give life to this architectural masterpiece marking a remarkable engineering achievement besides its architectural beauty.

The Morpheus Hotel in Macau stands as a testament to how bold design and innovative engineering can create something truly unique. If projects like this pique your interest, you can learn about parametric design courses at PAACADEMY to explore the tools behind such innovations.

The Morpheus Hotel in City of Dreams Macau, A Jewel in the Crown

Fairly named after the Greek God of Dreams, Morpheus, the hotel tower embodies a dream-like environment and ascends way beyond known limits of luxury, redefining hospitality. From breathtaking exteriors to a myriad of seductive spaces, ethereal guest rooms, and exceptional amenities, boasting glorious interiors, stunning collections of finest pieces of furniture, and exclusive decor, the Morpheus is an abode of elite architecture nurturing innovation, imagination, and futuristic designs. The Morpheus Hotel, Macau, adorns the City of Dreams like a Jewel in the Crown, providing nothing less than a surreal experience for the guests as promised during its inception. 

Besides its success in hospitality as an award-winning hotel, architecturally, Morpheus striking a perfect balance between its iconic form, structural integrity, and spatial planning, marks the beginning of a new style of architecture founded in collaboration, fosters the development of similar engineering marvels, and paves the way for the design of more and more futuristic and surreal spaces.