Eco Icon No.4

Hotel Aire de Bardenas, Navarra, Basque region spain

The Hotel Aire de Bardenas is a  new concept in sustainable hotels created by Barcelona architects Løpez Rivera. Set in the middle of  a Basque wheat field tanding alone in this incredible piece of rural Spain, with only the small town of Tudela and the desert-like Bardenas Natural Park to offer entertainment, this is the ultimate retreat from urban life.

Built on one floor and divided into eight minimal cube structures, Aire has twenty two rooms—ten of which have private patios—as well as public areas including a reception, main hall, meeting room, bar and restaurant.

The  design aesthetic  is a futuristic, bunker-style building that successfully refers to its surrounding raw , arid landscape  while at the same time integrating itself through the use of natural and reflective surface finishes , with the landscape. The building while having the  appearance of a permanent structure, is in fact made of a  lightweight construction can be quickly dismantled and recycled, with many of  the materials were locally sourced. This is  eco  architecture. While the architects envisioned the econcept from the outside in-, the interior is minimalist, even austere—all clean lines and clutter free decor. Each room offers a large viewing window that looks directly onto the expanse of uninterrupted fields.

Aire de Bardenas turns the idea of a hotel room as a sanctuary from the outside world on its head, instead using its spaces as “protected outdoor viewing devices” to bring each guest face to face with the stunning landscape.

The Hotel restaurant and organic food store provides locally produced and sourced  organic produce making the Aire de  Bardenas a covetable example of under stated sustainability where concept , design  and environment all work together to provide an alternative way to offer hospitality to the  urban weary traveller that feeds the soul without starving the planet.