The hotel was built within the boundaries of the large resort complex City of Dreams: there are other hotels (a total of 1400 rooms), restaurants, two hundred shops, two theater halls, but the main thing, like in Macau (more precisely, Macau), is a casino as a whole. which includes almost 200 gaming tables. Morpheus itself has no less functions: 780 rooms of various sizes and levels of comfort (but the smallest is 55 m2), a casino, a shopping center and conference rooms in a three-tier podium, a panoramic restaurant, and in the upper part there are VIP-gambling rooms, lounges, "Villas", luxury dining outlets and a rooftop pool. The height of the building is 160 m, the maximum according to local standards determined by the needs of aviation, and the total area is slightly less than 150 thousand m2. The building almost completely occupies its own plot measuring 52 m by 99 m.
When Zaha Hadid Architects were invited to cooperate in 2012, the architects were asked to build a hotel on the foundations of a residential building that remained on paper. On three sides, the site was surrounded by the resort buildings, on the fourth - by a busy motorway. All this created big problems during construction, since there was almost nowhere to place materials, construction equipment, etc., in addition, given the required area and program, the only option was a high-rise building, which further complicated the task. A constructive way out was the structure of two "proto-towers" each with its own core; these towers are connected by functional levels at the ground and roof level, less loaded spaces are created in between: there is a 40-meter atrium crowning the lobby, walkways, restaurants. But more important is the combination of two rods with a steel exoskeleton that makes the structure a hybrid, covering not only flat parts of the facades, but also areas of double curvature, etc. It has 1200 knots of increased complexity weighing up to 18 tons each, and there are about 2500 knots in total. The exoskeleton, together with ZHA, was trained by Buro Happold. Despite the necessity of most of the constructive measures, the overall shape, according to the authors, is inspired by the traditional Chinese art of jade carving.
The structure, together with increased efficiency glazing, protects the building from catastrophic hurricanes (power - just 200 years) and floods (just a century), seismic activity: these are local SNiPs. It also takes into account the extremely hot and humid subtropical climate with a high volume of solar heat and the need to frequently clean the façade (parts are provided to facilitate the movement of workers). Only the spaces where guests and employees are located are provided with air conditioning, while a significant part of the atrium, for example, does without them. The water is heated using a heat pump; efficient air cooling systems are used. The building as a whole is controlled by an intelligent system that “harmonizes” energy consumption with environmental conditions.
