Viceroy is developing a resort with a rainforest spa on the Bocas del Toro peninsula in Panama. The Viceroy resort and branded residences will form part of a 165-hectare development called CasiCielo, which translates from Spanish to “Almost Heaven”. Design collaborators include Zurcher Arquitectos and Wimberly Interiors. The whole site will have 700 guestrooms and 700 residential units when it is complete. The destination is a partnership between VHG, West

Center Parcs is pursuing plans to develop its first-ever holiday village in Scotland. The proposed project will feature 700 lodges, a luxury spa and extensive leisure facilities, with a projected investment of £350-400 million (US$443-507 million, €418-480 million), pending planning approval. Located in the Scottish Borders, north of Hawick and south of Selkirk, the site is approximately a 90-minute drive from both Edinburgh and Newcastle and two hours from Glasgow.

Fitness entrepreneurs Jon Williams, CEO, and Tom Edwards, COO, have co-founded a new high-end club in central Watford, Forest House Health and Wellness, with a group of health and fitness specialists. Along with Williams and Edwards, the co-founding members are: Steve Lewis, chairman, Bharat Hindocha, CFO, Raj Rattan and Rob Marsh. The first club will be opening its doors to the public in June 2023 which will be the sixth

Center Parcs is conducting a multi-million-pound spa remodel at its Elveden Forest holiday village in Norfolk, UK. Reimagined in line with Center Parcs’ Forest Spa concept, the spa will reopen on 29 September with 25 experiences. The new facilities will be spread across six zones and be inspired by some of the world's most extraordinary natural environments. Center Parcs says the redesign “reflects our woodland surroundings through the use of

A new geothermal forest spa called Forest Lagoon will launch in April near Akureyri, in Northern Iceland, with design by Basalt Architects – the creative driving force behind Iceland’s iconic Blue Lagoon. The story behind Forest Lagoon began in 2014 when workers digging inside the Vaðlaheiðargöng heath – for an unrelated project – discovered a geothermal hot water spring. This water source will serve as the beating heart of the

Glasgow’s iconic Kimpton Blythswood Square has launched La Chambre Verte, an immersive hotel suite experiment measuring the psychological and physical benefits of biophilic design. The hotel partnered with Scottish CBD skincare brand La Rue Verte, leading horticulturalists Benholm and award-winning DJ Brian D’Souza to create a multi-sensory experience combining biophilia with CBD rituals, meditation and sound therapy. Echoing the practice of forest bathing, La Chambre Verte is designed for the

Plans by Forest Green Rovers Football Club (FGRFC) to play its games at the world’s first entirely wooden stadium have been approved by the English Football League (EFL). Getting approval to host games at the proposed stadium clears another planning hurdle for the project, which would see a 5,000-seat venue built near the UK town of Eastington. Plans for the stadium were first unveiled in 2015 and it is expected

Banyan Tree Group has begun welcoming guests to a new 72-key beachfront resort and spa in Southern Thailand, named Banyan Tree Krabi. Design studio, Architrave, realised the new resort which is inspired by Buddhism, as well as the surrounding natural landscape, water and a mythical sea creature from local Krabi legends. Owned by Asset World Corporation, the five-star hotel houses a 517sq m rainforest-themed spa offering traditional Thai healing rituals

Six Senses has opened the fifth and final lodge in its multi-location Bhutan project, with the Six Senses Bumthang "Forest Within A Forest” lodge, designed by Habita Architects. The five-lodge, five-valley Six Senses khamsa or "journey" will take guests on a circuit of locations in the western and central valleys of Bhutan. The idea for the concept was first unveiled in 2016, with details of the first three lodges revealed

Digital art group Vertigo have created a new audio-visual installation that reacts to the movement of viewers and passersby, animating a public square with flashing LEDs. The artwork. called Echelon, is located at the foot of London’s Centre Point building and was curated by cultural placemaking agency Futurecity for Almacantar, a development company that is rejuvenating the brutalist building. It takes the form of a 12m (39ft) equilateral triangle of

Alexis Dornier has created an "experimental treetop boutique hotel" located in Ubud on the island of Bali, Indonesia, with a mix of part-industrial, part-natural structures in a tropical forest setting. In designing the 10ac (4ha) Lift hotel, Dornier sought to forgo the typical concrete-based development approach on the island in favour of low-rise and treehouse-like structures made of metal elements and natural materials. Each of the structures has a different

Atelier Tsuyoshi Tane Architects' (ATTA) design for the GYRE.FOOD restaurant in Tokyo, Japan, places diners in a forest-like environment of soil and lush greenery to encourage thought about the planet, the climate and where food comes from. GYRE.FOOD is located in a 1,000sq m (10,800sq ft) top-floor space of the MVRDV -designed GYRE complex, which opened in 2007 and comprises five stacked and spiralled boxes. The GYRE name is taken

Armin Sader, of hotel architecture firm Asaggio, is reimagining a historic hotel in the mountains of South Tyrol, Italy, with an emphasis on its solitary location in nature and a focus on wellness. The building in which Forestis is situated is located in the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Dolomites and was conceived by its original owners to be a sanatorium for lung disease sufferers prior to the First World War, making

The Aqua Sana spa at Center Parcs Longleat Forest, UK has relaunched following a £6m ($8m, €7m) refurbishment by Sparcstudio. The new 2,222sq m (24,000sq ft) "Forest Spa" has been reimagined with the creation of 24 spa experiences which draw inspiration from different aspects of nature and the surrounding forest landscape. Sparcstudio co-director Neil Fairplay told Spa Business : "The special feel of Longleat spa’s distinctive forest location was something

Aurelien Chen has created a pavilion in China that reimagines the traditional Chinese landscape of mountains, forest, clouds and water. The 350sq m (3,770sq ft) Dragon Mountain Landmark Pavilion, so-called because of its location in Zhulongshan – literally Dragon Mountain, was created to draw the attention to the entrance of the Dragon Mountain Natural site. Described by Chen as "an ethereal and abstract version of a traditional Chinese landscape", the

The Wuxi Taihu Show Theatre, designed by Steven Chilton Architects with a forest of bamboo-inspired columns around its perimeter, has opened in Jiangsu Province, China. Built to house a permanent water show by Franco Dragone, with its designs released last year, the 2,000-seat theatre was inspired by China's largest bamboo forest – the Sea of Bamboo Park in Yixing. The circular building is wrapped in a full-height glazed façade and

The planned new stadium for Forest Green Rovers FC, which was designed by Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) and has been dubbed the "greenest football venue in the world", has been given the go-ahead. The stadium is intended to form part of a £100m ($131m, €118m), 100ac (40ha) sports and green technology business park development, owned by club chairman Dale Vince's Ecotricity green energy group, and to be carbon neutral or

MU Architecture have unveiled the design for a paleofuturist tower in the hilly forest of Quebec, Canada, that will house a luxury private retreat. The site for the so-called Pekuliari tower will cover 326,000sq ft (30,300sq m) and the tower itself, reminiscent of a totem or a stone cairn, will rise 670ft (204m). The structure is designed to appear as though it is from a forgotten age, but with materials

Hotel operator Aman has opened a third resort in Japan that has been designed by the late architect Kerry Hill and his team to capitalise on its lush forest surroundings. The 26-room Aman Kyoto, announced in February, is situated in a hidden garden close to Kinkaky-ji Temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, near the centre of the prefecture. The 80ac (32ha) Aman Kyoto site comprises 72ac (29ha) of permanent forest

Stefano Boeri has taken his Forest City concept to Mexico, with the new 557 ha (1,376ac) Smart Forest City Cancun to incorporate 400ha (988ac) of green space, 7,500,000 plants and 2.3 trees per inhabitant. In addition to public parks and private gardens, greenery will feature in green roofs and façades, helping the city to absorb 116,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually. The city is designed for developer Grupo Karim's and

Austrian artist Klaus Littmann has transformed the Wörthersee Stadion in Klagenfurt, Austria, into a forest as part of an art installation looking to change people's perception of nature. The 32,000-capacity stadium, home of SK Austria Klagenfurt football club, has been fitted with a mini-forest of 300 trees what is set to become Austria’s largest public art installation. Overseen by Enea Landscape Architecture, the “For Forest: the unending attraction of nature"

Dale Vince, chair of UK soccer team, Forest Green Rovers, has resubmitted a planning application for a new 5,000-capacity stadium development dubbed the "greenest football venue in the world". Designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, the main stadium would be built almost entirely out of wood, making it the first of its kind in the world. The stadium would be the centrepiece of the £100m Eco Park development – a 100-acre

Ireland's first Forest Spa, the Aqua Sana Spa, is set to open at the upcoming Center Parcs Longford Forest resort in Ballymahon, Ireland in early August. The Aqua Sana Spa will boast a unique forest concept developed by spa consultancy Sparcstudio, in partnership with Holder Mathias Architects and Sisk Group. Neil Fairplay, director of Sparcstudio, said: "Sparcstudio have created and designed the new 'Forest Spa' concept for Centre Parcs which

Hotel Rodavento, a 36-bedroom retreat nestled in the foothills of Valle de Bravo, Mexico, has opened Rodavento Spa, a nature-inspired sanctuary set within the most secluded area of the surrounding forest. The spa comes with new amenities and treatment menus, enticing visitors to unwind in the beauty of the natural world and "Disconnect to Reconnect." Rodavento Spa is the work of architects Federico Gomez Crespo and Jose Antonio Gaxiola, in

Danish architects Effekt and global engineering consultancy Arup Associates have completed a tornado-shaped observation tower at the Camp Adventure Climbing Park in Denmark. The structure, which rises 45 metres above the Gisselfeld Klosters Skove – a preserved forest outside Copenhagen – features a winding ramp designed to accommodate visitors of all physical abilities. The tower also is linked to a 900-metre boardwalk that snakes through the nature park. According to

Japanese architect Kengo Kuma has designed the "Meditation House" – a wellness facility and retreat – in the Bavarian woodlands outside Krün, Germany. The 160 sq m outbuilding, which is only accessible by foot, is part of the 133-key Das Kranzbach spa hotel and features floor-to-ceiling windows, a tea room with artisan-designed tatami mats, and a meditation hall. The look of the pavilion was inspired both by traditional Japanese wooden

A new Savoy Palace resort is set to open in Funchal, on the Portuguese island of Madeira, to include a destination spa with 11 treatment rooms. The 16-story hotel will include 352 bedrooms and a design that blends bold, modern and historical styles. The 3,000sq m spa has been inspired by the island’s Laurissilva Forest, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the largest surviving laurel forest in the world. In