2021 Queenstown

Sudima Queenstown is one of a large number of hotels this group operates across Australasia. Here, at the bottom of the southern alps in New Zealand, the brief was to create a ‘local’ interior. We looked beyond the building and the immediate context and interrogated what local really means. Quite simply, life in an alpine landscape requires a presence and connection with the physical world. We aimed to provide a series of contrasts in texture, material and colour (which we took from an old water colour of the setting sun on the Lake Wakatipu) to regularly call one to attention. We worked with Mana Whenua and local artists to create site specific works for both the public and private spaces and looked at historic influences from Chinese on the visual language of the region.

Photographed by Paul Green