An abondoned quarry in the Songjiang Dirstrict of Shanghai, China will soon be home to a five-star luxury hotel. The InterContinental Shimao will house 380 rooms, with 19 floors and two of them will be underwater. The £345million hotel was designed by Atkins and construction is set to be finished in 2015 with the average room rate to be a little over R3,000.

The hotel has been designed to blend in with its surroundings with an eco-friendly lawn roof with plants and trees, and let’s not forget the 100m high waterfall as a centerpiece. The waterfall will be visible from guest bedrooms as it flows from the roof to the atrium.

Senior manager for Shimao Group Li Xuyang said:

Two stories will be built underwater, 17 will be within the cave and two more will be above ground.

The roof of the hotel will only be 15 m above the cave. The idea was to take advantage of this unique land form and to create a garden growing in the air.  People could view the hundred-meter high waterfall from their room window. The hotel is part of the larger project to build Shimao Shanghai Wonderland, a large-scale theme park.

[Source: Daily Mail, The Telegraph]