Hotel Mandarin Oriental Riviera Maya

The Hotel Mandarin Oriental Riviera Maya is located on the Cancún-Tulum tourist corridor, eight kilometers to the north of Playa del Carmen. On a beachfront lot of 154,000 m², the constructed surface is 35,000 m². A central premise of the design was to leave 119,000 m² of the site unoccupied.
The hotel has four main public areas: lobby, spa, restaurant with banquet halls, and beach club. Lodgings consist of 128 villas (grouped in five zones): 20 two-storey villas around a majestic cenote; 66 jungle-waterside villas, served by a system of canals; 20 villas on the central lagoon; 16 villas among the mangroves, built like palafittes around a lagoon; and 6 villas along the beach; in addition to the presidential villa.
The public areas begin at the entry plaza, framed by large stone walls and connected to the lobby by a vehicle road sunk into the vegetation.
An impressive palapa, or palm-leaf shelter, 80 meters long and 15 meters high, covers the reception, the common areas, and the library.
The high-tech spa occupies 3,000 m² and includes both men's and women's sections, a gym, a cafeteria, a swimming pool, and a watsu, as well as eleven treatment rooms. Its interior décor, which evokes both Mayan and Oriental cultures, creates an ambience suited to healing and meditative relaxation.
The restaurant, with its striking copper roof, is located between the jungle and the mangrove swamp, with views of a group of villas alongside the lagoon. The banquet and meeting rooms, the lounge, and the terrace bar all form part of this section of the complex. The main path, which leads to the beach club -roofed in three white concrete slabs that evoke waves-, winds back past a sun deck and a seaside swimming pool, a restaurant zone, and a series of cantilevered terraces.
Copper on the façades, wood on the terraces, and stone for the walls and overhangs are the materials that characterize the complex.
 

Gilberto Borja (Guadalajara, 1961) graduated as an architect from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in 1985. He has been Director of International Relations of the Colegio de Arquitectos Mexicanos CAM-SAM, and of the Federación de Colegios de Arquitectos de la República Mexicana FCARM. He was on the board of Pronatura and is currently on the board of the trust responsible for the use of the Auditorio Nacional, Founder President of Desarrollos Marinos del Caribe, Inmobiliaria Marina del Caribe and Grupo Baia and member of the American Institute of Architects AIA.