Since 2012, Melco Crown Entertainment’s “Dare to Dream” signature series has brought world-renowned artists and experts to Macau, to offer local young talent the opportunity to study with the best of the best in different fields.
The latest in this series is the Zaha Hadid Design Competition which challenged Macau students studying architecture locally, or abroad, to design a villa set in a landscape.
Among the designs submitted, Culzean Labyrinth in Scotland, created by Stephanie Choi Cheng I, a fourth year student at the Glasgow School of Art, successfully impressed the judges with its creativity and practicality, and won the Competition. Later this year, Stephanie will travel to London to spend one week at the headquarters of Zaha Hadid Architects.
“I am very impressed by the level of creativity shown by the winner and the finalists of the ‘Dare to Dream Zaha Hadid Design Competition’ and I believe they are going to contribute significantly to Macau’s long term development,” said Mr Lawrence Ho at the award presentation last month.
After the event CLOSER spoke to Stephanie about her successful submission in the competition.
“I think it is a very great opportunity that Melco-Crown has provided us, because Zaha Hadid is such an internationally renowned architect, and as a woman she is a great example for me. It’s also a chance to learn practical things that I can’t learn at university,” says Stephanie.
Also presenting the award to Stephanie on the day was Mr. Michele Pasca di Magliano, a member of the judging panel and Senior Associate of Zaha Hadid Architects.
“Stephanie’s project really stood out because it had a very practical sense, a very poetic image, and was the most complete of all the submissions,” noted Michele. “I had no idea that she was a girl and I was very pleased with that too because the construction industry is very male dominated and we need more women in this field.”
Stephanie’s internship program at Zaha Hadid will only be a week long, but as Michele explains: “As a university student who hasn’t had access to any real architectural studios, to be able to come to Zaha Hadid, is a really unique opportunity. She will get to know us and see how things work and hopefully this will help her as she develops her career. There is so much construction and architecture going on in Macau, so hopefully in the future there will be more local talent with more international exposure”.
The judging panel comprised of Dame Zaha Hadid, Founder of Zaha Hadid Architects, Mr. Michele Pasca di Magliano, Senior Associate of Zaha Hadid Architects; Arch. Carlos Marreiros, President of the Fellow Members Council, the Architects Association of Macau; Mr. Helder Santos, Chairman of Supervising Committee, Macau Urban Planning Institute; and Mr. David Clarke, Vice President of Design, Melco Crown Entertainment.
Eventually five designs were shortlisted as the finalists and these students were also given the opportunity to make a 3D print of their project, to learn more about this new technology which is becoming more and more important in the industry.
The judges particularly wanted to see that the projects could really be executed, and therefore the students were given a real brief.
“We left them to choose their own site but they had to choose a real site and the project had to have constraints and inspirations given by a real landscape,” explains Michele. “All five came up with some very good and creative, challenging ideas. There was one that even used the pilons of the Friendship Bridge between Macau and Taipa.”
For her project, Stephanie decided to design a hydropathy centre located in Culzean Nature Park in Scotland.
“I named my project Culzean Labyrinth in Scotland, because the structure is like a maze and a journey wandering around the different rooms with different views and different temperatures,” she explains.
“I wanted to have contextual architecture which means the surrounding context of the site is heavily considered. My building is designed to follow the natural geography of the site and the level changing of the site was important for my sustainable design approach because the building is partially buried under the ground and the earth stores heat. How the hot water is transferred around the building is important in order to minimise the heat loss and energy usage.”
A World First
The involvement of Zaha Hadid Architects in the Dare to Dream program came after the company was selected as the architectural firm to design the new Tower 5 at City of Dreams. Founder Zaha Hadid was a winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize (considered the Nobel Prize of architecture) in 2004, and has been included in Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World” list, ranking top of the Thinkers’ category. CLOSER spoke exclusively to Mr. Michele Pasca di Magliano, Senior Associate of Zaha Hadid Architects on his recent visit to Macau.

Zaha Hadid Architects, Michele-Pasca
Can you tell us a bit about the design of this building?
It’s a very unique structural system, where the façade is also part of the structure. It’s a structural system that has been used on much smaller scales and much smaller buildings, but taking it to this extreme and this level of complexity, this has never been done before, it’s a world first. There is no other building in the world like it.
One of the reasons we used the exoskeleton structure is that normally you hide the structure and you try to mask it architecturally. But since this building is such a challenging series of elements we just wanted to celebrate that, so we pushed it to the outside. This created some additional challenges because of the interconnection with the façade system but at the same time it also offered a lot of freedom for the interior organization of the building.
The façade is also very innovative – a freeform façade which actually takes over the central part and void, so it’s a total 3 dimensional glass surface.
How does this impact on the interior space?
This complex has a lot of different activities happening inside it and we found the opportunity to create some very unique spaces. We wanted to insert the F&B, the hotel rooms, the swimming pools all within one cohesive envelope and the fluidity of the design really helped us. The structural façade helps because we have a column free interior and all the structure is on the outside of the building. We have some fantastic spaces and at night you will see some of the special areas lighting up in different ways as the building comes alive throughout different times of the day. We have flying bridges and flying pools and very large atriums, so we are very thrilled. It’s an exciting façade but its whats inside that’s really interesting.
How important is it for a city like Macau to have a unique structure like this?
We are trying to do something unique for Macau. Our challenge was to do something that could only be done here and that the rest of the world would be looking at. When it is finished it will be a real reference, not only for Macau, but globally. One building can change a place and I really hope we are part of creating a unique space and a unique urban setting for Macau, and particularly for Cotai which is relatively new and changing so fast.