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again are the design principles that bind its line of hotels: respect for history and place, a relaxed minimalism, and emphasis on the human aspects of space. Careful integration of the old and the new is repeated through different properties: in Puebla’s La Purificadora, architect Ricardo Legorreta niftily cannibalized the original structure’s century-old beams, giving them a second life as flooring and parts of columns. In 2015, co-founder Carlos Couturier told Centurion magazine that the group believes its buildings should encourage natural face-to-face socializing, saying, “The hotels of the future should contribute to restoring the essence of social interaction: human contact.” Grupo Habita’s hotels tend to be open, airy, and flowing, with ample lounging areas for contact and connection.
Grupo Habita’s design-centric approach shines through in Escondido Oaxaca, a recent addition to its lineup in Oaxaca de Juárez. Escondido translates to “hidden”; in this case, it can be taken to mean “blending into the environment.” The warm sand-coloured monochrome of the walls, floors, ceilings, and furniture, paired with the use of cement and panelling, makes it seem as though the building rose from the ground all on its own (think a brighter Star Wars cantina, less all the lights and tech).
Rafael Micha describes how their creative teams “are encouraged to reflect the surrounding environment in design features and colour schemes.” Escondido Oaxaca wouldn’t look out of place lined up next to either the city’s Aztec ruins in the Monte Albán archeological site
or its colonial-era cathedrals. This sense of place is emphasized by the hotel’s reliance on local artistry: Oaxacan artisans made both the textiles and the furniture. The building itself “was a painstak- ing remodel of a late-19th-century traditional house with a central courtyard, revising it to include a rooftop terrace and pool as well as eight new rooms,” Rafael Micha explains. Grupo Habita describes the hotel as a work of art, which is true in two senses: it’s a beautiful object, and it’s the result of a whole lot of creative labour.
Not far away, in Puerto Escondido, is perhaps the group’s most forward-thinking property: the Terrestre Hotel. Working with ar- chitect Alberto Kalach, the group conceptualized the building as an environmentally sustainable powerhouse, fully solar-powered and surrounded by endemic landscaping, a type of gardening that uses only native flora. There’s no air conditioning; instead, cooling is built into the infrastructure: rooms are set up to benefit from cross-current winds, and water flows through the building creating ponds, pools, and cascading showers. “It plays with the sun, wind, and water,” as Kalach puts it. Operating as a part of the environment, rather than a refuge from it, Terrestre is positioned between the Pacific Ocean and the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca mountains, “tucked into the landscape as though it had been there for hundreds of years,” says Rafael.
The launch of Terrestre aligns with a growing interest in the concept of “sustainable tourism” driven by increasing awareness of the industry’s impacts on the natural environment. Rafael Micha is adamant that the hospitality industry must align itself with sustain- ability “without greenwashing and brainwashing.” Within the context of the hospitality industry, greenwashing is the act of launching environmentally friendly initiatives for the purposes of public rela- tions without any truly substantive investments in sustainability. Rafael is correct in his assessment of its pitfalls: greenwashing can lead to consumer cynicism, as well as confusion over the legitimate environmental implications of the industry.
Hotels make up about one per cent of global carbon emissions. However, the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance found that, by 2050, carbon emissions need to be reduced by 90 per cent per room to ensure that forecast growth doesn’t correspond to an increase in pollution. Back in 2000, Grupo Habita took a gamble on lifestyle hotels as the way forward for the hospitality industry. Now, its founders have placed their money on low-energy-consumption luxury. The group’s history of success might give the rest of the industry reason enough to listen.
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