Spa garden design special: Alberto Apostoli

Alberto Apostoli, founder of Studio Apostoli, talks about what inspires his designs and how to reference the five elements in your spa garden

One of the most important objectives for architects and designers when creating a spa garden is to create spaces that are perfectly integrated with the surrounding landscape. I want to create architecture that seems almost like a natural element and therefore is perfectly balanced with the outside. I’m talking about creating lightness, about creating ethereal shapes suggested by the environment.

Nature is much more skilled than human beings at creating architecture – just think of a tree, a structure that the higher it gets the bigger it becomes. We cannot help but take inspiration, creating shapes and volumes that are perfectly integrated with nature and that are able to give it something. This does not mean creating anthropomorphic forms, but one must commit to using a certain softness similar to that of the hills and dunes.

A visual reference My greatest passion when designing outdoors is looking for the best field of view in the landscape. I need this point of reference to be able to enhance the trees as if they were sculptures – ones that know how to grasp the orientation of the sun and that can enhance every surrounding element.

I like to emphasise paths that have particularly dry vegetation with grassy surfaces, or vice versa. One of the most important aspects for me is the dualism in the different perceptions we have of nature. I always try to integrate the five elements of the Taoist religion too – wood, fire, earth, metal and water.

To create a seamless flow between the indoor and outdoor sections of a spa you need to give guests a reason to go out through clever design that invites them to explore. The designer must be able to change perspective and should not be limited to simply adding a few trees, plants or a pond; they must design as if the exterior were a huge room, while maintaining the same language present inside.

If the space is limited, it is necessary to value the human being more than the environment, focusing on the different types of customers who might come to visit the place. People are more important than architecture. Ergonomics is certainly not a simple and intuitive science, but it must absolutely be studied. www.albertoapostoli.com

Alberto Apostoli Founder, Studio Apostoli