Regenerative Hotel Feasibility study in Asturias, Spain

This project was born from a client's ambition to build a hotel with Living Building Challenge certification, a demanding framework that pursues a net positive impact on the environment across all its dimensions: energy, water, materials, health, wellbeing and connection to place.

The feasibility study developed a proposal of 1,500m² for a rural settlement in Asturias, incorporating 21 rooms of varying sizes, restaurant, bar, sauna, temazcal, shala, natural water pools and parking. The programme is resolved through a series of modest volumes, stepped across the sloping terrain, designed to blend with the traditional architecture of the surrounding area while maximising views towards the mountains to the west.

The activities programme, yoga, meditation, thermal bathing and direct contact with the natural environment, was a determining factor in the spatial configuration of the project and in the relationship between the individual volumes and the landscape.

The treatment of the external spaces is integral to the proposal. The site is understood as a complete ecosystem: water harvesting and management is planned at the scale of the entire plot, and the principles of biophilia, sensory and visual connection with nature, are applied across both interior and exterior spaces, responding to the different petals of the Living Building Challenge from design through to material selection.

A timber structure, tiled roofs, large west-facing windows and calm interiors translate these principles into buildable architecture, rooted in the landscape and in the constructive tradition of the region.

The technical coordination included a thorough analysis of local planning regulations, hotel regulatory requirements and coordination with the different consultants and building services necessary for a programme of this complexity.

Have a project with similar ambitions? Get in touch.