Our Altai: Opening up Hemu to the World

​Project - Hemu Jikepulin International Ski Resort 

Workscope - Strategic Planning ⋅ Architectural Design

The  incredible and remote Altai mountain range has long been renowned for its spectacular beauty, regularly gracing the screen as it has again recently in hit tv show My Altai. Herein lies the village of Hemu, the jewel in the Altai crown. 

Owing to its remoteness and basic infrastructure, Hemu’s tourism has always been niche and mostly limited to the warmer months - and therein lies one of our challenges in creating Hemu Jikepulin International Ski Resort.

The East side complex shares a continuous design language like two parts of the same puzzle

How can we transform Hemu’s reputation into an all-season destination? How can we maximise the tourism and skiing potential of Hemu whilst ensuring it retains its unspoiled village feel? How can we create a destination that is as exciting as it is educational, and world class whilst remaining locally lead?

Our answer lies in NDA Group’s unique proposition – a mission to design for People and Place combined with a full value chain of integrated services backed by a multinational multidisciplinary team. 

Here at Hemu Jikepulin International Ski Resort our workscope of strategic planning and architectural design ensures continuity to the logic of the resort experience as well to the design language of the architecture.

The West Ski Centre seen from the beginner slopes 

Strategic Planning

We seek to share the wonders of Hemu with a diverse audience from beginners all the way to professionals. Thus, we divide our built spaces into family friendly, professional, and of course, fun!

Whilst the ski slopes are not as simply divided into easy and hard ski difficulty, we create two ski centres – one focusing on families, and the other on professionals. Accordingly, we design their adjoining hotels and services to complement each other in functionality, facilities and form. 

Multiple roofs give the East Side Hotel a notably village-like feel

This means audience specific planning like the East Ski Centre being larger to accommodate more people, with coach parking spaces at its adjoining hotel. Conversely the West Ski Centre is smaller and catered to individuals and small groups. The West side hotel, accordingly, has a much more intimate feel. 

Finally, whether beginner or pro, we design the mountain top café and ski stations as Instagram-ready hotspots, fun places for people to gather, appreciate the views and take a million selfies ensuring constant online buzz.

Design to Channel a Culture

Huge windows on the East Ski Centre offer breathtaking views 

As we immersed ourselves in Hemu we found inspiration not only in the local architecture but also in the strong sense of 'village' in its most pure definition - a warm collective space bonded by community. This sense of village underpins our design spirit. 

Our design journey starts by wanting to immerse guests in an authentic Hemu village experience.

——Strong, NDA Group architect 

We channel this design spirit throughout our built spaces and highlight it at every step of a guest’s journey, starting with an immersive arrival experience where guests marvel at the striking rooflines which echo Hemu village architecture and pay tribute to the mountain peaks. 

These multiple roofs visually break up large single buildings and enhance the sense of entering a village, giving guests a sense of warmth and community out here in the vast Altai mountains. 

Bonded by a shared design language each of our built spaces caters to its target audience by striking a balance between village feel and modern functionality.

East side hotel roofline pays tribute to the Altai mountains

At the East Ski Complex, with its family and commercial focus, we design for functional performance so guests can adventure with maximum freedom and minimum fuss. This operational efficiency is achieved through carefully designed functional layouts such as placing the hotel reception in close proximity to the parking lot, giving the ski centre  larger gathering and resting spaces as well as larger mass audience restaurants and food courts.

Conversely the smaller West Ski Centre and its hotel offer a more high end experience, where despite the village feel, privacy is elevated with private dining rooms in the ski centre, and the villa accommodation options at the hotel. With many of the guests at this hotel being experienced skiiers, we even create the villas and lobby to be ski-in directly from the slopes. 

NDA Vision

Through our planning and architecture work we seek to immerse travellers in Hemu whatever the season, where they arrive as tourists but leave as champions of the Hemu experience and its people.

As My Altai finishes broadcasting, a new chapter for Hemu, supported by NDA Group, begins. And we await you here to create your own Altai story！