Pedras do Mar Resort & SPA / M-arquitectos

Architects: M-arquitectos
Location: R. Dr. Hugo Moreira 58, 9500-110 Ponta Delgada, Portugal
Architects In Charge: Fernando Monteiro, Marco Resendes, Miguel Sousa
Area: 6780.0 m2
Project Year: 2016
Photographs: Paulo Goulart

Team: Ana Silva, Pedro Furtado, Diana Policarpo, Rodrigo Dias, João Costa

From the architect. This brand new hotel was recently opened on 2016, in the Azores Islands, Portugal. With 125 rooms, the hotel stands over a oneiric landscape of scopes that cut out the north shore of S.Miguel Island. Our mission was to create an architecture that values its relationship with the landscape.

Therefore, the building complex extends horizontally to improve the viewpoints to the north shore as well to the vulcanic massif – known as Lagoa do Fogo – at the south. The hotel incorporates its functional essence and its constructive mission to the environmental values of the Island, using local materials.

Regarding its shape, the building complex takes advance of the stunning scenery.The building, designed on three floors, respects the horizontality and scale of the surrounding environment. It seeks to integrate and appropriate the landscape in its programmatic extension, where all rooms and public spaces of the hotel are visually connected to the lush landscape.

Both the interior and exterior spaces are protected from harsh weather, the prevailing winds, and sunlight. The Azores, empirically known for having the four seasons in just one day, The local materials – cryptomeria wood and vulcanic basalt stone, greatly responds to the site at issue – both climatic as well as territorial. The Hotel represents all site’s strengths.