Designing Hospitality Experiences for Today’s Travelers
RIOS transforms traveler expectations into purposeful design strategies for today’s hospitality experiences, where landscape architecture redefines what luxury means. In an age when true luxury is measured by authenticity and connection to place, our resort landscape designs create immersive environments. Landscape helps to engage the senses, foster connection, and promote wellness through meaningful encounter with the natural world.
By placing landscape architecture at the forefront, we create experiences that feel cinematic and transformative—revealing the unique histories, ecologies, and craft traditions of each site. Our designs offer guests the ultimate luxury: genuine discovery within thoughtfully curated environments that celebrate the irreplaceable character of place.
At Treehouse Hotel Silicon Valley, we designed a sensory landscape with over 100 species of edible and medicinal plants. Potager gardens, orchards, and outdoor rooms celebrate Silicon Valley’s agrarian past while creating a playful, and sustainable retreat.
Heritage oaks and garden nooks shape playful outdoor rooms for gathering, dining, and retreat at Treehouse Hotel Silicon Valley
Storytelling Through Place
Every place holds a distinctive story waiting to be revealed through its culture, environment, and heritage. Our hospitality design process embraces this complexity, crafting spaces that are refined yet welcoming. Sophisticated design becomes accessible through thoughtful details and meaningful experiences.
At El Encanto, A Belmond Hotel, RIOS is reimagining the historic resort as a modern-day Secret Garden. Cinematic garden rooms unfold like chapters, each defined by its own texture, fragrance, and seasonal rhythm—enriching the resort’s timeless narrative.
El Encanto Resort in Santa Barbara. Photographed by Mike Kelley
Context as Design Language
Each hospitality landscape projects references its greater context through materiality, planting, lighting, or climate-responsive strategies. Whether drawing from local geology, surrounding ecology, or historic patterns, our design storylines extend beyond project boundaries. We create places that are rooted in their setting.
For Aman Residences at One Beverly Hills, we designed luxury residential gardens inspired by California’s golden hills, coastal plains, and sage scrub. This approach will transform the historic site into a verdant oasis that bridges public and private realms.
The botanical gardens at Aman One Beverly Hills reimagine luxury living at the western gateway of the city
Shaping Experiences at Every Scale
Our hospitality work moves fluidly across scales—from custom furnishings that invite touch to sweeping landscapes that transform communities. Through active collaboration with clients and stakeholders, we translate insights into authentic forms. These designs engage the senses while honoring each site’s intrinsic identity.
At Six Senses RiverStone Estate, this approach guides our design of an interconnected system of trails and agricultural landscapes. Ecological stewardship, cultural identity, and wellness programming come together across 1,200 acres.
At Six Senses RiverStone Estate, historic farmland is reimagined as a wellness retreat rooted in ecology and discovery.
Craft, Sustainability, and Materiality
Stone, wood, clay, and water become storytelling elements in our sustainable hospitality landscapes. We sculpt visual embodiments of contextual narratives with the highest level of craft. Our process prioritizes sustainable fabrication, material reuse, and local sourcing.
At 1 Hotel West Hollywood, we bring nature indoors with reclaimed materials, lush planting, and crafted details. The elements merge interiors and landscapes into a cohesive environment.
Lush landscape frames outdoor terraces at 1 Hotel West Hollywood, creating moments rooted in nature
Inside, layered natural materials and planting create a warm, tactile atmosphere
Discovery Immersed in Nature
Hospitality design centers on trust, interaction, and connection to spirit of place. We believe nature is beautiful, healing, and essential, and that every person benefits from its pleasures. The landscape should invite exploration and effortless discovery, where what feels natural is thoughtfully curated.
At Raffles Estera East Cape Resort & Residences, guests will discover immersive encounters with desert, dune, and estuary ecologies. These landscapes are preserved within a UNESCO-protected zone to showcase the natural richness of Mexico’s Los Cabos coast.
Raffles Estera East Cape offers a rare convergence of Mexico’s desert, dune, and coastal landscapes.
Distinct and memorable moments in the landscape transform a stay from ordinary to unforgettable. Hotel pool decks become destinations for dining and gathering. Private terraces extend the comfort of the domestic realm outdoors with hearths, lounges, and garden rooms. These hospitality-driven outdoor retreats encourage guests to linger, connect, and return.
By designing environments with an authentic sense of place, we create resort landscapes that leave lasting impressions—where nature, culture, and community converge.