Bawah Reserve
Design
Sustain the experience Sustainability is a design concept that is going nowhere soon. As hotels adopt and
incorporate this into their everyday operations, some are taking it a step further by constructing spaces and accomodation with sustainability at the very centre of the experience. Brooke Theis speaks to Angel Barreno at BIG about the newest biosphere treehouse at the Treehotel in Sweden, and Paul Robinson, the COO at Indonesia’s Bawah Reserve, to fi nd out more.
ntil recent years, the words ‘luxury’ and ‘sustainability’ rarely appeared together. The former was synonymous with excess and indulgence, with little regard for what it cost both the traveller and the environment. But, according to a 2021 survey by Virtuoso, 82% of travellers are now prioritising the environment when booking trips and sustainability is becoming widely viewed as the key to a successful modern hotel. Indeed, amid the climate crisis, it’s more important than ever for hotels and resorts to minimise their carbon footprint and be mindful of their surroundings – all without compromising the luxury experience for guests. In northern Sweden, deforestation has dramatically reduced the number of trees that hold bird nests, resulting in the dramatic decline of different avian populations in the area. This was a primary concern for the team behind Swedish Lapland’s Treehotel – lauded for its variety of distinct eco-conscious cabins – when looking to add an eighth guestroom to their portfolio. Together with the Bjarke Ingels Group
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(BIG), they consulted the ornithologist Ulf Öhman to explore how they could strengthen the environment Treehotel exists in with their new design. The result was the Biosphere: a suite set high above the expansive Harads pine forest that features 350 birdhouses nestled in its facade. “Sustainability is fundamental for the global environment, but it’s also about introducing new ways of understanding design, where we have the opportunity to discover innovative processes to give form to the future,” says Angel Barreno, the associate and senior architect at BIG who led the biosphere project. “By providing bird habitats, we can possibly change the spread and survival of the species. The biosphere provides 350 homes for birds, but it will also naturally house bees, bats and butterflies, which increases biodiversity.”
Barreno says that the starting point in the design process was to carry out extensive research on how they could encourage the coexistence of different species within the biosphere, followed by careful
Hotel Management International /
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