05/02/2026
The second in our series of posts showcasing projects within the “Architecture of Possibility: Zaha Hadid Architects” exhibition at is ZHA’s Morpheus Hotel on Macau.
Developed for Melco Resorts & Entertainment, one of Asia’s largest developers of entertainment resorts, the 40-storey, 150,000m² Morpheus tower combines dramatic public spaces and generous guest rooms with inventive engineering and formal cohesion. Built over the existing abandoned foundations of an unrealized tower, the design optimises the hotel’s interiors with the world’s first free-form high-rise exoskeleton.
Vortices within the structure create external voids through the full-height atrium and define the hotel’s spectacular public spaces. The comprehensive parametric model ZHA developed for the Morpheus combined all of the hotel’s aesthetic, structural and fabrication requirements; enabling every new contribution from the global design and construction teams to be recalibrated, analysed and checked by highly automated systems in real time.
In 2018, TIME Magazine listed Morpheus Hotel as one of the World’s Greatest Places based on key factors including quality, originality, innovation, sustainability and influence. South China Morning Post described the building as “Revolutionary. Morpheus‘ imaginative design doesn’t so much raise the bar as propel it into orbit” –
Wall Street Journal: “Morpheus hotel is an instant icon, heralding a new era of design-driven development… Architecture as an artform.”
✨ Architecture of Possibility: Zaha Hadid Architects Exhibition
🗓️ December 12, 2025 — April 10, 2026
📍 3F-5F, Cloud Center, Museum of Contemporary Art & Urban Planning (MOCAUP), Shenzhen, China
#深圳市当代艺术与城市规划馆 of Possibility