A chill hotel in every way except one

This article is part of our special Design section on making the environment a creative partner in designing beautiful homes.

When Grupo Habita representatives asked the architect Alberto Callach to design an eco-friendly, energy-efficient hotel along Oaxaca’s jungle coast, he knew he’d have to have a few things in return.

The luxury hotel chain, he said, should understand that its new outpost needed to be small-scale and low-rise to minimize the destruction of natural vegetation and reduce the environmental damage that major construction projects can wreak on local lands and water resources. . Mr. Kalach’s sensitive concept for what is now called Hotel Terrestre allowed for only 14 rooms, limiting the property’s profit potential.

Future guests would also have to make sacrifices, as the hotel had to run entirely on solar energy to avoid the use of fossil fuels. Hotel Terrestre’s rooms have hot water and Wi-Fi, but they run on an energy source limited by the weather, leaving hospitality out of the picture, such as in-room hairdryers and even air conditioning, no small ask – at $350 a night – in a location where temperatures can reach the high 80 degrees year round.

It is not surprising that the architect got his demands. Mr. Kalach is a superstar designer in Mexico, the creative force behind numerous landmark projects, including the critically acclaimed Vasconcelos Library in Mexico City. His name is a brand.

But his company is also known for delivering a bargain, in this case creating a tranquil seaside oasis that is in sync with the sun and sand that surrounds it and that offers maximum views of the Pacific Ocean on one side and on the other. other side maximizes the mountains of the Sierra Madre del Sur. the other.

He may have left out the air conditioning, but he gave each of the rooms its own private pool to cool off quickly. The beach, he noted, is only a few hundred yards away.

“And we oriented the rooms to catch the wind; the breeze that comes from the ocean during the day and the cool air that comes from the mountains at night,” he said. “Air conditioning represents about 8 percent of the planet’s pollution.”

Hotel Terrestre’s goal is to provide simple pleasures through a low-impact, high-design filter, according to Moisés Micha, a co-founder of Group Habita, which operates 15 design-forward hotels in Mexico. “The idea is to work hand-in-hand with nature,” he said.

To that end, the hotel serves as a Mexican beach resort, but with an emphasis on relaxation and wellness rather than margaritas and mariachi bands. There is an on-site restaurant serving gourmet cuisine and a separate bar for guests to mingle. But it’s more a place to meditate, soak in private bathtubs and wander the extensive gardens formed in a maze of succulents and native plants, such as the frangipani that covers itself for weeks in dazzling, white blooms . every spring.

Guests can borrow mountain bikes or take excursions to Oaxaca’s famous mezcal factories, but they also tend to spend romantic evenings watching the sunset and then going to bed on nature’s clock. Opened last year, the hotel has proved popular with honeymooners.

In a sense, Hotel Terrestre is remote. The nearest large town is Puerto Escondido, 29 kilometers away, the first three kilometers on a dusty dirt road connecting the resort to the coastal highway. Another kilometer further on, the area becomes posh. Populated by mango groves, cattle ranches and the occasional crocodile, it is steadily developing as a high-end getaway and is home to Casa Wabia well-known artist residence and cultural center designed by Tadao Ando.

Mr Kalach kept his design simple, using “no extra materials you don’t need,” he said. The aim was to reduce the environmental costs of transporting surplus goods on mountain roads and loading landfills.

The main structure, which houses the guest rooms, has very little decoration, although it remains dynamic due to the exterior masonry walls that rise and fall, like stairs rising from the ground. There is a bare, Brutalist edge to the building, though softened by the texture of the bricks, which are placed in different directions and colored in the warm beige, brown and red tones of the local rock from which they are derived.

The building has two levels: the first is enclosed, with exposed concrete walls and barrel-vaulted ceilings (and custom furnishings by renowned designer Oscar Hagerman). The second, which is reached by an external staircase, is open-air and has a swimming pool and a small area of ​​the roof that provides shade while guests enjoy the scenery.

Those expansive views, and the way the architecture frames them, are the real amenities of the Hotel Terrestre, Mr. Kalach said, grand, organic and stunning enough to make guests forget little things like air conditioning at the height of summer. Or at least that’s his hope.

“Every citizen of the world expects someone else to solve the global warming problem, the government, the energy producers,” he said. “But it belongs to all of us. We all need to change certain ways of behaving.”