The Banjaran Hotsprings Retreat is located in the northern state of Perak in Malaysia. Designed to meld to the areas natural topography the retreat offers food and beverages, spa and wellness centre, garden, water and lake villas, including geothermal hot springs, thermal steam and meditation and crystal caves, jungle walk, yoga and fitness centre - all of which are sustainable practises.
The holistic approach by Malik Lip & Associates successfully incorporates the natural elements into the wellness centre by understanding "the surroundings, natural resources, its potentials". Nature is regarded to the same importance as social wellbeing, not 'below economic value', by incorporating all existing landscapes, caves, vegetation and water into the design.
The average temperature across the year in this region is 25°C, and the design accounts through the distribution of buildings allowing continuous air flow. The curvilinear pathways allow visitors to stroll through through the lush landscape offering peace and tranquility as well as the villa's small gardens and water features which accompany the natural hard and soft landscaping in the area, which are locally sourced. The hard materials like the palm leaf thatching show ecological recognition and heat minimisation, and though the soft landscaping appears as if it was a jungle many of the plants have been selected to offer canopy, emit stunning scents, vibrant flowers or as natural mosquito repellents.
Though this maybe 6,000 miles across the world from the UK I believe lots of things can be reflected upon in this design. Wellness and health undoubtably a very current topic, as people's lives get stressful with work, financial difficulties, and just the busyness of daily life individuals strive to have relaxation and meditation. When designing North Place (one of my current projects) - a currently monotonous landscape - I want to make the detailed considerations to provide the top design. Though the projects brief has various components that must be included, the main focus is to design a distinctive biophilic urban landscape approach, which Banjaran Hotsprings Retreat embodies. Reviewing this design has opened my mind to the sort of elements I could/should consider when designing. Overall I consider this design to be beautiful and completely inspiring.
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