ISPA Conference & Expo
ISPA Conference & Expo
ISPA Conference & Expo

Biophilic

Rooted interest

From hotels in trees to hotels covered in trees, we hope this green trend continues to grow


Treehotel
Edeforsvägen, Sweden
Architect: Snøhetta
Client: Britta and Kent Lindvall
The 7th Room at Treehotel is located in the treetops overlooking the Lule River

The 7th Room joins six other guest suites, all contained within treehouses, that make up the Treehotel in Edeforsvägen, Sweden.

The 7th Room was designed by Norwegian architecture studio Snøhetta, providing a unique perspective of the Northern Lights from a forest canopy. Hovering 10 metres above the ground amongst the trees, the 7th Room is a traditional Nordic wooden cabin with a large netted terrace suspended above the forest floor.

The unusual hotel room is supported by 12 columns, and a large pine tree extends through its central void. Up to five visitors can live in the space, which has a social lounge area, a bathroom, two bedrooms with beds embedded in the floor and an outdoor terrace – where guests can sleep under the stars in a sleeping bag.

“The design aims to bring people and nature closer together, extending the cabin’s social spaces to the outside and further blending the distinction between indoor and outdoor,” said the architects. “With complementing light and wooden furniture, the interior makes up a blonde Nordic contrast to the dark exterior.”

Previous Treehotel suite architects have been Mårten Cyrén, Inrednings Gruppen, Rintala Eggertsson Architects, Tham & Videgård Arkitekter and Sandell Sandberg.

A ‘blonde’ interior serves as a contrast to the dark exterior of the structure PHOTOS: Johan Jansson
The design of the cabin aims to bring the guests and nature closer together
Oasia Hotel Downtown
Singapore
Architect: WOHA
Developer: Far East SOHO Pte Ltd
More than 50 plant species help create a green and growing hotel building PHOTOS: K Kopter

Singapore-based WOHA is famous for its garden hotel, Parkroyal at Pickering, and followed its success in the city’s central business district. Launched in 2016, Oasia Hotel Downtown is covered in a permeable aluminium façade, allowing creeper plants to take hold of the red structure and grow and thrive, over time transforming the building into a towering green ecosystem.

WOHA sees the design for the 314-room Oasia as a prototype for hospitality and commercial tower blocks, and says the concept “moves beyond vague notions of sustainability by fundamentally embracing living systems into a mixed-use programme — one that grows, rather than exhausts a city’s resources.”

The façade is made up of 21 species of creepers to make sure it’s lush and resilient during different weather conditions. A further 33 species of plants and trees are used throughout the hotel, becoming a haven for birds and animals in the city.

The permeable aluminium facade allows creeping plants to attach, grow and multiply
WOHA hopes the concept will inspire future buildings
1 Hotel and Slo Living
Paris, France
Architect: Kengo Kuma / Marchi Architects
Developer: Compagnie de Phalsbourg
The building will be fronted by a planted promenade and act as a ‘green lung’ for the neighbourhood IMAGE: LUXIGON

An eco-luxury hotel and adjacent next-generation youth hostel are under development in Paris, in the Rive Gauche district, which aims to become a bastion of sustainable architecture in the city.

Kengo Kuma has designed 1 Hotel, embedded within planted terraces and suspended gardens at various levels to “create a green lung for the city”. The complex will include a sports centre, bar and restaurant, business zone and co-working space, as well as a public garden that will complement the nearby garden of the National Library.

The related hostel, Slo Living, was designed by Marchi Architects.

Atlas Hotel
Hoi An, Vietnam
Architect: Vo Trong Nghia
Developer: DANH Co Ltd
The building will be fronted by a planted promenade and act as a ‘green lung’ for the neighbourhood IMAGE: LUXIGON

Hoi An’s old town has experienced rapid growth and an increase in tourists since it was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The area is famous for its traditional architecture, featuring tiled roofs and small courtyards. The nearby Atlas Hotel is a new development that seeks to capture the charm and tranquility of old Hoi An and the dynamic emerging Hoi An.

The five-storey, 48-room Atlas Hotel has many internal courtyards and deep planters which make up the hotel facade, allowing greenery to provide the rooms with solar shading, while the perforated stone walls allow light and airflow through but keep the space cool.

The hotel offers a restaurant, café, rooftop bar, spa, gym and swimming pool.

Vo Trong Nghia says: “The use of these green and natural elements embodies the particular interest of the office and the House for Trees concept: to integrate greenery into design as a way to rejuvenate urban areas and to contribute to societal improvement.”

Qiyunshan Tree Hotel
Qiyunshan, China
Architect: Bengo Studio
Client: ZYJ
The property comprises two bedrooms, a bathroom, lounge spaces and roof terraces

Stacked timber volumes form the structure of Qiyunshan Tree Hotel, a small accommodation in the heart of the Huangshan mountains in China’s Anhui province. Designed by Shanghai-based Bengo Studio, the hotel features two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a living room in its 120sqm space. The top level is a ‘landscape room’ providing unobstructed views of the lush scenery. Reaching 11 metres high, the hotel is the same height as the surrounding red cedars.

The ‘landscape room’ is the top storey, where hotel guests can enjoy the forest view
Mountain Forest Hotel
Guizhou, China
Architect: Stefano Boeri Architetti
Developer: Guizhou Wanfenggu Ecological Tourism Development Co Ltd

Italian architect Stefano Boeri has designed a tree-covered resort property in China’s Guizhou province. It’s part of Wanfeng Valley, a sustainable district that’s being developed across 20 hectares in Xingyi City, Qianxinan.

The property is part of the Cachet Hotel Group and will be the centrepiece of Cachet Wanfeng Valley ‘lifestyle destination’ – its first resort development in Asia. The building will feature a 182-room Cachet Resort Hotel and a 71-room URBN hotel, two restaurants and lounges, a swimming pool and fully equipped fitness centre, as well as a Cachet cSPA – an environmental and design-led concept created by consultancy and management firm WTS.

Boeri says the vertical forest model promotes wellness and creates sustainable urbanisation. “Research has enabled us to develop building technologies to bring trees high up in the sky and irrigate them with recycled water. This advancement, alongside ongoing analysis of the vegetation that can thrive in these environments, allows us to conceive unique buildings specific to their locations.”

Stefano Boeri’s designs for the Cachet Wanfeng Valley feature trees on every terrace
Rosewood São Paulo
São Paulo, Brazil
Architect: Jean Nouvel
Developer: Allard Group
Flowers, plants and trees drape the public and private spaces, terraces and rooftopsn

Rosewood Hotels & Resorts’ first project in South America, this São Paulo hotel has been designed by Jean Nouvel as a “vertical park”. Located at a city building that was formerly a maternity hospital, a 90-metre tower with a latticed steel facade will rise next to the historic building, and will be covered with landscaped terraces.

The plant- and tree-covered hotel will offer 151 guest rooms and 114 private residences, with interiors designed by Philippe Starck.

Two restaurants – one on a veranda overlooking the lush hotel gardens – a bar, a caviar lounge, a rooftop pool and another outdoor pool in the landscaped grounds, a large spa, fitness zone and luxury retail will all be available onsite.

Nouvel is using the neighbouring Matarazzo Park as an inspiration. “It is an oasis. It is a place of urban calm,” he says. “When building at the edge of this park, the best response is undoubtedly to belong to the park and to allow the trees to invade the new construction as well.”

Eventually it will be covered in trees like those in the park, such as fig and magnolia trees.

The vertical garden provides a sense of continuity between the hotel and its surroundings IMAGES: Ateliers Jean Nouvel

company profile
Company profile: Barr + Wray Ltd
Founded in 1959, Barr + Wray is recognised as a world-leading provider of spa design, engineering and pool & spa equipment.
Try cladmag for free!
Sign up with CLAD to receive our regular ezine, instant news alerts, free digital subscriptions to CLADweek, CLADmag and CLADbook and to request a free sample of the next issue of CLADmag.
sign up
features
The Tsingpu Yangzhou Retreat has 20 guest rooms
Rossana Hu studied at the University of California at Berkeley, where she met Lyndon Neri
"Interior projects carried out by architects have a depth that’s generally lacking today"

Neri & Hu’s latest project

Huge windows frame the view
Peter Irmscher, senior architect, Zaha Hadid
"The brief said you had to be able to walk through it with ski boots on"

A year on from the opening of Zaha Hadid’s Messner Mountain Museum, project architect Peter Irmscher talks us through the highs and lows of the development

Atelier Ten is working on the expansion of SFMOMA
Patrick Bellew, founder, Atelier Ten
"It’s a wonderful extension to the existing modernist MOMA museum by Snohetta"

Working with Zaha Hadid, Heatherwick and more, Atelier Ten helps create sustainable buildings. Patrick Bellew speaks out

Catalogue Gallery
Click on a catalogue to view it online
To advertise in our catalogue gallery: call +44(0)1462 431385
features
The hotel features two restaurants and two bars, including the Julep Herbal & Vermouth Bar
Olga Polizzi is director of design for Rocco Forte Hotels and also owns two of her own hotels
"On Via Sistina, everything breathes history. At the same time I wanted to reflect the modern hunger for the fantastical - Tommaso Ziffer"

Following the highly anticipated launch of Rome’s Hotel de la Ville, Rocco Forte’s director of design reflects on a fascinating project

Mori’s design for the airy visitor centre of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Darwin D. Martin House in Buffalo, New York
Born in Kobe, Japan and later growing up in New York, Mori has become a trailblazer for women in architecture around the world
"Every decision you make, you should think seven generations ahead"

From a compressed earth cultural centre in Senegal to the sleek Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Mori’s work shares a clarity of purpose

features
Martin Jochman founded JADE+QA in 2013. He formerly worked for Atkins
"We didn’t want to put in any gimmicks. We wanted to create a building that’s inherently sustainable through passive sustainability"

When Martin Jochman set out to transform an old quarry into a luxury hotel, he faced some serious challenges

The museum’s first exhibition, Never-part, gathers stories told by Palestinians about their treasured possessions, investigating the connections between material objects and personal and collective identity
"This museum is not about being stuck in the past. It’s about inspiring the younger generation"

Kath Hudson takes a look at the many challenges of designing and building the Palestinian Museum on the West Bank ahead of its summer opening

cladkit product news
Eden project uses drones to spell out climate change warning
Magali Robathan
Almost 300 drones were used to signal an environmental message above the Eden Project’s biomes, during the UN Climate Change ...
Codelocks develops new glass door smart lock
The new lock model allows facilities and building managers to create and manage access via an app or online portal
Megan Whitby
Codelocks has launched its first glass door smart lock to bring intelligent access control to modern spa, leisure, fitness and ...
Siminetti unveils iridescent decorative panelling range inspired by plants
The Clematis design
Megan Whitby
The Botanicals is Siminetti’s newest Mother of Pearl decorative panelling collection, inspired by the distinctive patterns found in botany and ...
cladkit product news
Mather & Co and ITV unite to create Coronation Street Experience
Mather & Co has transformed the visitor centre into the ultimate haven for ardent Coronation Street viewers
Magali Robathan
Experience designers, Mather & Co, have orchestrated a remarkable collaboration with ITV to unveil the new Coronation Street Experience, a ...
Koto Design introduces wood-fired hot tub
Koto is known for crafting modular, energy-neutral cabins and homes
Katie Barnes
A striking wood-fired hot tub has been unveiled by Koto, an architecture and design studio which has a passion for ...
Jaffe Holden helps bring Academy Museum of Motion Pictures alive
Jaffe Holden provided architectural acoustics for the Academy Museum
Magali Robathan
Acoustical consulting firm Jaffe Holden provided architectural acoustics and audio/video design services for the recently opened Academy Museum of Motion ...
cladkit product news
Alberto Apostoli and Newform collaborate to launch the A.Zeta showerhead
The showerhead offers two modes; rainfall or waterfall
Megan Whitby
Italian architect Alberto Apostoli has renewed his partnership with Newform – an Italian wellness company – and designed A.Zeta. A.Zeta ...
Alberto Apostoli designs tech-forward Wellness Therapy furniture collection for Varaschin
The furniture collection draws on absolute geometries, pure lines, neutral colours and strong references to nature
Megan Whitby
Furniture manufacturer Varaschin has unveiled the new Wellness Therapy range, designed by Italian spa and wellness architect and designer Alberto ...
Eco Resort Network conference to convene in Mauritius this May
The event will be hosted in the Mauritius in 2024
Megan Whitby
Hospitality industry event Eco Resort Network is set to take place at the Ravenala Attitude Hotel, Turtle Bay, Mauritius, from ...
x
Email this to a friend or colleague
I am happy for Leisure Media to contact me occasionally by email and understand that I can opt out at any time.
Biophilic: Rooted interest
The beautiful nature-inspired hotels where guests can sleep among the trees @treehotel @WOHAarchitects @StefanoBoeri @ateliersjnouvel
ISPA Conference & Expo
ISPA Conference & Expo