Luxury Hotels Atlas / The Maison / Upper House (Swire)
Upper House (Swire) hotels
Architects shape each house for its city, giving Asian hotels the scale and calm of residences.
The House Collective brought a small group of architect-designed Asian hotels together through Swire’s idea of “Houses, not Hotels,” with each address conceived for its own city. Swire retired the umbrella name in October 2025 and unified the hotels under Upper House, carrying that design lineage into a new shared identity.
3 Upper House (Swire) hotels in 2 countries on the Luxury Hotels Atlas, each placed on the six LHA Tiers.
- Owned by Swire Hotels
- Worldwide: Very small and getting smaller before it gets bigger again — three Houses currently open (Hong Kong, Chengdu, Shanghai) after the 2024 closure of the group's founding hotel in Beijing, with three more confirmed in the pipeline (Shenzhen, 2027; Xi'an, 2028; Tokyo, 2029) and Swire Hotels' own stated cap of "a maximum of 15" hotels under the unified brand by 2030
- On the atlas: 3 Grand Luxury
History
Four architect-designed hotels established The House Collective between 2008 and 2018, with Kengo Kuma, André Fu, Make Architects, and Piero Lissoni giving each a distinct identity. The Opposite House closed in 2024, and Swire later brought the remaining Houses together under Upper House. The new name carries forward a design history built around individuality.
Timeline
- 2006 — Swire Hotels' hospitality business launches with two brands in parallel development: The House Collective and EAST.
- March 2008 — The Opposite House opens in Beijing's Sanlitun district, Swire Hotels' first hotel, designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, with 99 rooms including a two-floor penthouse, inside the Sanlitun Village retail complex Swire also developed
- 2009 — The Upper House opens in Hong Kong, occupying floors 38–49 above the Pacific Place complex in Admiralty, designed by then-largely-unknown Hong Kong architect André Fu of AFSO, a commission that launched his international career.
- July 18, 2015 — The Temple House opens in Chengdu's Sino-Ocean Taikoo Li complex, the House Collective's third property, designed by UK-based Make Architects, with 100 rooms and 42 serviced apartments and a spa built inside two restored Qing-dynasty courtyard houses
- 2018 — The Middle House opens in Shanghai's HKRI Taikoo Hui development, the fourth House Collective property, designed by Italian architect Piero Lissoni, with 213 rooms.
- June 30, 2024 — The Opposite House permanently closes after 16 years, Swire Properties confirms the group's founding hotel will be redeveloped into retail space as part of an expansion of the adjacent Taikoo Li Sanlitun shopping complex, citing years of losses in the hotel segment
- October 16, 2025 — Alongside the rebrand, Swire announces its first branded residences project, Upper House Residences Bangkok, expected to complete in 2030, and confirms new Upper House hotels planned for Shenzhen (2027), Xi'an (2028), and Tokyo (2029), with a stated ceiling of "a maximum of 15" Upper House and EAST hotels combined by 2030
The houses to know
- The Upper House, Hong Kong, Hong Kong — André Fu’s interiors give The Upper House a quietly residential atmosphere above Hong Kong’s Pacific Place.
- Upper House Shanghai, Shanghai, China — Formerly The Middle House, Piero Lissoni's fourth House Collective address, folded into the HKRI Taikoo Hui development in the historic Dazhongli area.
- Upper House Chengdu, Chengdu, China — Formerly The Temple House, a Qing-dynasty courtyard entrance beside the thousand-year-old Daci Temple, wrapped in a facade that echoes Chengdu's brocade-weaving tradition.
Newest openings
- No new Upper House / House Collective hotel has opened in the last 24 months. The group's most consequential recent event was not a new opening but the October 2025 global rebrand that renamed two of its three surviving Houses (Chengdu and Shanghai) to align with Upper House Hong Kong.
Opening next
- Upper House, Shenzhen — Shenzhen, China — expected 2027 — First confirmed new-build hotel under the unified Upper House name, in the Greater Bay Area at Shenzhen Bay.
- Upper House, Xi'an — Xi'an, China — expected 2028 — Planned within the Small Wild Goose Pagoda historical and cultural zone.
- Upper House, Tokyo — Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan — expected 2029 — Developed in partnership with Tokyu Group and L Catterton Real Estate as part of the Shibuya Upper West Project, a mixed-use redevelopment of an existing department store, the brand's first hotel outside Greater China.
- Upper House Residences, Bangkok — Bangkok, Thailand — expected 2030 — Swire Hotels' first branded-residences project and its debut in Southeast Asia; not a hotel, but the brand's first foray into for-sale luxury real estate.
Every Upper House (Swire) hotel on the atlas
China
- Upper House Chengdu — Chengdu · Grand Luxury
- Upper House Shanghai — Shanghai · Grand Luxury
Hong Kong
- The Upper House — Hong Kong · Grand Luxury
Open The Maison in the atlas for Upper House (Swire)'s full dossier, with prices and maps.