Issue link: https://www.balharbourdigital.com/i/1461738
202 BAL HARBOUR IMAGES COURTESY THE PATINA GROUP nyone with a bucket list has surely put the Maldives on it. The chain of 1,200 coral islands located just south of India is rife with stunning luxury hotels (every brand from Four Seasons and Waldorf Astoria to Six Senses and Soneva has an outpost there), each offering fantasy-inducing expanses of over-water bungalows, waterslides from your bathroom into the sea and turquoise ocean for as far as the eye can see. However, the newest luxury player in town likely isn't a familiar household name. The Patina Group, a lifestyle brand under the Capella Hotel Group, has just debuted its stunning 90-villa Fari Islands property, complete with restaurants, communal gathering spaces and retail village—as well as an experiential Skyspace piece by James Turrell. Here, architects Marcio Kogan and Renata Furlanetto share their insights around creating the stunning property. You're based in Brazil and have designed private residences and hotels everywhere from Mexico to Miami, but how did this project in the Maldives, for a new hotel group, come to you? Marcio Kogan: The client, Evan Kwee, (who owns the Capella Hotel Group and Patina Hotels) liked our work a lot and visited us KP$TC\KNCDQWVƂXG[GCTUCIQVQUGGQWT projects. He wanted to see a house that's about two hours from São Paolo, near the DGCEJ+VYCUVJGƂTUVFC[QHCNQPIYGGMGPF so it took seven hours to get there and seven hours to return. I thought he'd of course never want to work with us after that but, in the end, he loved it. He hired us and became a very important person to collaborate with during the entire process. You can't produce good architecture without a good client. It's VJGƂTUVTWNG How were you inspired to create the hotel? MK: We visited the Maldives shortly after we were hired. We visited 10 resorts in 10 days, each better than the next, but one thing we noticed was that it was hard to see A The property's spa includes suites with a couples hammam, as well as a dedicated 9CVUWURCEGCPFCƃQCVRQFHQTUGPUQT[ deprivation therapy.