Lonavla, a hill station in the Sahyadris, is the nearest and most popular weekend retreat for the residents of Bombay. Its natural topography, cooler+drier climate, verdant landscapes and history (Ancient forts + Buddhist cave temples) has attracted uncontrolled development leading to a substantial erosion of the character that defined it.

The Radisson Lonavala Resort grapples with a fundamental problem, a contradiction created by the rapid urbanisation of the rural area. The sense of open space of connecting to nature is contested by the building forms that emerge through the prescribed building codes and densities.

The site is located in a predominantly residential neighbourhood. It consists of two separate plots divided by a planned accessway that has been adopted by the project but cannot be built on.

The architecture emerges from the site, topography, from the region’s material history (Black Basalt & Wood) and adapts to both flexible and fixed (Public + Private) programs.

The feeling of multi-storey building has been avoided by developing the ground as organic, free form public spaces with split level topographical connections. Extant forms (Bastions/ Large masonry walls), stepped courts (kunds) animate the built landscape. The room blocks hover above the ground, as bold, abstract volumes with louvred permeable secondary walls. The ground rises vertically into a shaded atrium courtyard. The organisational structure makes nature the protagonist and deploys space, material and light in ways that replace the experience of a ‘Building’ with a journey through a landscape that is alternately built and unbuilt.

It is also important to view the project in comparison to hospitality space with similar densities. Hotels in the vicinity follow urban models, with thematic applications, the identity often being alien to the place.

Developing an idea that eliminates the decoration, embellishment in order to let natural building materials work within a framework that responds to a dense program, that prioritises response to the place, memory and climate instead of pre-conceived visual notions is a major challenge.