What would an ideal love hotel would be like? Qiu Yuxin and Zhao Yimeng, two students from the School of Architecture of Tianjin University, designed the architectural work called "Love Village" to interpret their understanding of a utopian love hotel. Their work won the first prize in the "UIA-HYP Cup 2016 International Student Architectural Design Competition" in October, 2016. In addition, during the competition, students from Tianjin University won four Awards of Excellence and six Entry Awards meaning Tianjin University won the most awards among all the universities and colleges.
Qiu Yuxin and Zhao Yimeng, designers of the first prize, "Love Village", thought that "love" should be broadly-defined. According to the German philosopher Marcuse's Eros theory, Eros can be seen as a variety of forms of human instinct, which pursue a complete and harmonious ideal. Modern industrial society puts great pressure on humans. They are enslaved by material desires, manipulated by technology, and controlled by machines. Eros can liberate human beings from depression, and can explore and emancipate human potential. According to this theory, Qiu Yuxin and Zhao Yimeng had an urge to deconstruct and reconstruct the love hotel. They thought the ideal love hotel should be a utopian space providing the possibility for the further emancipation of people. Based on the guiding theory, the concept of the hotel became diversified with the functional element of the kitchen integrated into the design of the hotel. Furthermore, comfortably-furnished living rooms, reliable logistics and convenient transport, all created a warm hotel that could wash away people’s fatigue and depression.
In the minds of the designers, the love hotel became a “love village”. People who live there from different backgrounds can share the joy that community life and Eros brings. Using that guiding principle, they blended the concept of "love" and made it a substantial part of the design of the building. Old-style office buildings were reused and redesigned reflecting the idea of the green building. In their scheme, the concept of "love" in a broad sense coincided with the inherent patterns of the love hotel architecture, thus creating a utopian space.
The UIA-HYP Cup International Students Architectural Design Competition starting in 2012, is one of the largest and the most influential and credible college students architectural design competitions in China. A total of 3,078 groups of students entered the competition, and finally 731 groups submitted their works. The judges from the Competition Judging Committee were all well-known architects or architectural educators at home and abroad.
