Imagine a hotel in a glass box that is determined to think way outside the box, and you start to get an idea of the dynamic that infuses The Opposite House. Even the hotel name is deliberately obtuse; a reference to the building opposite the main house of a traditional Chinese courtyard complex where guests resided.

Beijing’s hottest new boutique hotel lies at the southern end of The Village at Sanlitun, Swire Properties’ colourful new retail development home to the world’s biggest Adidas store and Apple’s first China flagship among other high street brands and slick dining venues. It’s the first hotel for Swire Hotels, a newly formed-division of the Swire Group. The parent company already owns Cathay Pacific Airways and has interests in several five-star hotels. Through Swire Hotels they plan to purpose-build and manage their own small exclusive hotels by world-renowned architects and designers that “challenge the norm” and take the stuffy out of the luxury hotel experience. Their flagship is to be folowed in the next two years by hotels in Hong Kong, Guangzhou and a string of regional English towns.

The Opposite House is a highly impressive (and pricey) entree. Celebrated Japanese architect Kengo Kuma was commissioned to design the hotel. It was the first hotel project for the 54-year-old avant-garde designer whose trademark minimal organic aesthetic is quite a departure from the usual Beijing design riff (no red columns or shouty silhouettes here). Instead, Kuma plays with natural elements, luscious textures and a delicate delineation of private and public space.

All 99 rooms open out to a glass-topped central atrium that soars the height of the building and floods the lobby with natural light. Kuma cleverly teases this light throughout the hotel; it filters through a mesh curtain that drapes across the atrium, bounces off bubbling reflection pools in the lobby and seeps through a wall of little acrylic drawers inspired by a traditional Chinese medicine chest. Amazingly, light even sneaks into the basement thanks to a sunken garden and reflective stainless steel swimming pool.

Visitors enter a space that looks more like a contemporary art gallery than a hotel. There is no reception desk. Guests are whisked through the check-in process by friendly ‘hosts’ in Jetsons-like silver and mint green uniforms wielding futuristic digital clipboards and cameras to copy passport details, swipe credit cards and record signatures. They are then beamed up in glass lifts to the keycard-protected residential floors where they disappear behind reclaimed redwood doors.

Inside, the rooms are strikingly simple, verging on stark, with sunlight streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows. Floors, furniture, bathrooms, even deep soaking tubs are clad in natural light brushed oak. This may sound harsh, but on the contrary, the timber has a comforting, textured feel. Leave your slippers in the cupboard and enjoy the sensation of padding barefoot across the rustic surface, enhanced by lovely under-floor heating.

Most hotel functions are neatly tucked away in drawers and behind moveable timber walls. Once you locate the flip-out connection board however, you can very easily hook up your ipod and computer to the big plasma screen and powerful Denon sound system that, joy upon joy, is wired all the way through to the rainshower. Generously-sized vials of organic Tibetan Roseroot bath products by local brand Bayankala and a complimentary mini bar filled with snazzy treats like Coopers Pale Ale and dark chocolate are examples of the other surprise delights that await guests.

The small hotel manages to create a buzz in the public areas thanks to some fun (and more moderately priced) basement dining venues conceptualised by Shanghai-based restaurateur David Laris and design duo Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu. Northern Asian restaurant Bei highlights the cuisines of Japan, Korea and north China under the direction of American chef Max Levy, whose impressive Japanese pedigree includes stints at The Tasting Room in New York and a Japanese eel farm. Meanwhile, Sureno serves stylish and comforting southern European favorites from an open kitchen and woodfired oven. Like the restaurants, sexy lobbyside cocktail lounge Mesh manages to feel less like a hotel venue and more like a destination in its own right.

Digging into a bowl of perfect linguine alle vongole at Sureno, opening automatic blinds to reveal the new-look Sanlitun, and whizzing around the city streets in the hotel’s Maserati Quattroporte are hardly your typical Beijing experiences, but with so much Ming-this and Qing-that in the capital already, this spunky new boutique hotel is banking on the fact that opposites attract.

www.theoppositehouse.com