When nature fights back: lessons for hotel designers
Sustainable hotels aren’t just built in nature—they’re shaped by it. From wildlife encounters to passive cooling, discover how nature is redefining hospitality…
Words by Liam Aran Barnes | Eco Stay Awards Co-founder
When wildlife shapes architecture
The warning came early. Locals in Uganda had seen it before—gorillas mistaking their reflections for rivals, then charging with the full force of the wild.
“We were already into the design phase when we heard the stories,” said Anomien Smith, lead designer at Luxury Frontiers, speaking during a panel at the recent HIX Event in London.
“Silverbacks had been seen slamming into windows. That changed everything.”
The entire structure had to be rethought—raising units off the ground, removing reflective surfaces, and eliminating eye-level glass at the back to avoid provoking them.
It wasn’t the first time nature had forced a rethink.
At safari lodges across Africa, Smith has seen hyenas shred leather furniture overnight and baboons turn luxury tents into trampolines, bouncing until they ripped apart.
“Nature doesn’t care about your blueprint,” says Louis Thompson, founder of Nomadic Resorts and Tuu Eco Stay Awards judge.
“If you don’t respect the environment, it will remind you—forcefully.”
These clashes are lessons. In remote locations, hotels don’t just coexist with nature. They depend on it.
Sustainability isn’t an option—it’s survival
For many hotels, sustainability has long been a marketing checkbox—a few solar panels here, a low-flow showerhead there. But in remote, off-grid locations, sustainability isn’t about appearances—it’s a necessity.
In Costa Rica, hotel developers typically bulldoze land to create foundations, causing permanent damage. But at a recent project, Luxury Frontiers took a radically different approach.
Instead of carving into the land, they built elevated structures, 12 metres above the ground. Within months, the forest began to reclaim the space beneath, turning the site into a living ecosystem rather than a construction zone.
“Once you cut into the land, the damage is done,” says Smith. “So we raised the structures, letting the forest take back the space below.”
Thousands of miles away in Sri Lanka, Thompson’s team faced a different sustainability challenge: integrating local expertise.
Instead of hiring foreign contractors, they turned to 140 local fishermen, many of whom had never built anything beyond wooden boats. With the right training, they constructed an entire lodge from bamboo and natural materials, blending craftsmanship with environmental sensitivity.
“We trained them,” Thompson says, “but we learned just as much in return.”
A German bamboo specialist and a punk rock carpenter covered in tattoos worked alongside the local team, their worlds colliding over shared craftsmanship.
“By the end, they were eating together every day and swapping skills,” he says. “That’s sustainability in action.”
True sustainability, he argues, isn’t just about materials or certifications. It means designing hotels that function as part of their environment—ecologically and socially.
That philosophy doesn’t stop at construction. How a hotel operates, particularly in managing energy, can make just as much of an impact. Nowhere is this clearer than in the battle against air conditioning.
Designing for comfort without air conditioning
For designers working in tropical climates, AC is often considered non-negotiable.
But at the HIX Event panel, Tate+Co founder Jerry Tate and Thompson challenged that mindset. Natural ventilation, strategic shading, and vernacular architecture can often provide the same comfort—without the massive energy footprint.
“You don’t need air conditioning,” Tate argues. “You just need to design things properly.”
Beyond structural design, one of the biggest sustainability challenges is internal comfort—especially in hot, humid climates.
Across Africa, hotels are rediscovering the wisdom of traditional building techniques.
“For centuries, African architecture has used airflow for cooling,” says Thompson. “We just forgot how to build that way.”
Tate has demonstrated how passive cooling strategies work in less extreme climates. His Callow Hall treehouses in the UK’s Peak District are built from locally sourced timber and rely on zero-carbon heating and passive ventilation, achieving the same comfort as an air-conditioned suite—but with a fraction of the environmental impact.
This return to passive design is reshaping how hotels define comfort. But sustainability isn’t just about reducing impact—it’s about redefining experiences. As travellers seek deeper connections with nature, the very concept of luxury is changing.
Luxury goes feral
Luxury travel has long been about excess—grand lobbies, polished marble, total control over the surroundings.
But today’s eco-conscious travellers are looking for something different: authenticity, immersion, and a connection to nature.
"Guests should engage with a landscape, not pass through it," said Sophie Harper, moderator of the HIX Event panel. “Minimising impact is one step—what really matters is changing mindsets.”
For Thompson, the most indulgent experiences aren’t about high-end finishes or five-star service.
“True luxury isn’t excess—it’s space, silence, fresh air,” he says. “It’s about waking up in a place that makes you feel connected to the world around you.”
At the Eden Project in Cornwall, this philosophy is being taken to the next level. Jerry Tate explains how the project was designed to immerse people in nature as a way to inspire change.
“Tim Smit, Eden’s co-founder, realised data alone doesn’t inspire action,” Tate explains. “You need to walk through a rainforest to understand why it matters.”
Now, Tate+Co is leading the design of a 109-bedroom sustainable hotel on the site. The building will be constructed using timber, rammed earth, and a unique clay-hempcrete mix sourced from the site itself. The goal? To ensure the building is as much a part of the landscape as the trees around it.
“Sustainability means nothing if people don’t want to be there,” Tate says. “A hotel has to feel like a place worth staying in.”
Hotels shouldn’t sit on landscapes; they should grow from them. Across the world, some already are—changing not just their footprint, but the ecosystems around them.
Learning from nature’s blueprint
A fisherman in Sri Lanka, once bound to the sea, now builds bamboo lodges—passing his craft to the next generation.
In Costa Rica, a hotel that left the land untouched is now watching the forest reclaim its place.
And in Uganda, a silverback gorilla moves through the trees, unaware that the lodge below has finally learned to see the world through his eyes.
The lesson? Fight nature, and you’ll fail. Work with it, and you’ll create something extraordinary.