Design showcase: Top five remote hotels

This week’s collaboration with TOPHOTELDESIGN centres on five hotels which take inspiration from their secluded locations.

We examine projects encompassing themes such as nautical charm and desert lodges which perfectly blend with the remote nature of their surroundings.

Sublime experience

Some travellers dream of getting to know big luminous cities, others seek just the opposite. We live in a century where concrete and traffic lights are all over the place, attempting to organise the endless flow of the fast-moving population that lives inside screens.

Sometimes, being far away from all that can be the ultimate cure; moving away from the superficialities of life to appreciate ancient icy landscapes or feeling vertigo by sleeping under the stars on a tiny island.

That is what we know as a sublime experience. Sublime meaning the meeting of the subjective-internal (emotional) and the objective-external (natural world): we allow our emotions to overwhelm our rationality as we experience the wonder of creation. Sublime experiences, beautiful yet scary, inspire an emotional understanding that transcends rational thought and words or language.

Today we selected five projects that set the ideal scene for this type of experience in the best-designed way possible.

From auroras to deserts

Click on the images and links below to explore these hotels and architects on TOPHOTELDESIGN. 

Ion Adventure Hotel

Selfoss, Iceland
by minarc

The first project is Ion Adventure Hotel, located at Selfoss, Iceland, which allows guests to gaze at the aurora borealis from its cozy windowed interiors.

The Lindis

Canterbury, New Zealand
by RCP Auckland & Architecture Workshop

Next up, The Lindis blends perfectly with New Zealand’s warm-toned landscape, both from the inside and outside.

Explora El Chalten

Los Huemules, Argentina
by Jose Cruz Ovalle
Supplied by Hansgrohe

Our third focus, Explora El Chalten, located at Los Huemules, is right next to the town known as Argentina’s trekking capital, where guests are steps away from the adventure of their lives.

Pater Noster Lighthouse

Hamneskär, Sweden
by Stylt Trampoli AB

While Pater Noster Lighthouse, as it says in its name, houses guests on a tiny lighthouse island in Sweden, where charming nautical interiors accompany a wonderful stay.

&Beyond Sossusvlei Desert Lodge

Sesriem, Namibia
by Fox Browne Creative

Completing our top five, &Beyond Sossusvlei Desert Lodge, with floor-to-ceiling glass walls, introduces visitors to the extraordinary Namibian landscape.

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