Puerto Escondido Hotel

Designed as a response to how ALIENS could imagine MANKIND to live, HOTEL TERRESTRE – a new luxury hotel on Mexico's PUERTO ESCONDIDO coastline - is an arresting piece of SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE that looks to both the past and the future.

- MARTIN JACOBS

"Hotel Terrestre is embedded in the landscape, as if it has been there for hundreds of years," says architect Alberto Kalach of his otherworldly masterpiece, 25 kilometres northwest of resort town Puerto Escondido in the state of Oaxaca. Alberto knows a thing or two about this area. It may be a half-day's drive from his Mexico City studio, Taller de Arquitectura X, but the pristine coastline famed for its surf is already home to a handful of his projects. So when approached by Carlos Couturier, co-founder of Mexican boutique hotel group Grupo Habita, to design a multi-sensorial property that redefines sustainable tourism, he jumped at the opportunity.

His environmentally sensitive approach to architecture has shaped several structures in the area, including Hotel Escondido and the award-winning restaurant Kakurega Omakase. These buildings hold their own in a landscape populated by hotspots like Casa Wabi, a retreat by starchitect Tadao Ando, and a permanent outdoor installation by artist Bosco Sodi.