Located in the Guanacaste region of Costa Rica, 4km from San Bernardo de Bagaces, the HOTEL Rio Perdido is a 20-room boutique bungalow hotel recently added to an existing thermal[...]

漏 Armando DelVecchio
Located in the Guanacaste region of Costa Rica, 4km from San Bernardo de Bagaces, the HOTEL Rio Perdido is a 20-room boutique bungalow hotel recently added to an existing thermal water tourist resort that lacked the capacity to host visitors for more than daylight hours. In stark contrast to what Guanacaste is famous for, its beaches, Bagaces is an extraordinarily rustic area, surrounded by trees and prehistoric rocks, solitary mountains and a cloudless sky at the foot of the Miravalles volcano. With all this potential in hand, the design goal while conceptualizing the project was a creation of spaces that embrace and invoke sophistication while complementing the landscape and acting in harmony with the natural environment ? a place where jungle meets luxury. 漏 Armando DelVecchio
Nature being the main inspiration of the concept, an intimate connection between building and land in the site planning process became the projects driving force. Existing trees defined horizontal spacing (not one tree was removed from the site) while the natural topography initiated vertical separation (no grading was performed), creating left over semi-open spaces for trails, landscape and rest. Three meandering rows of bungalows sit within the breaks in flora. Each bungalow meets natural cont...