Flotel Club in Greater Cancun Area

We proposed a floating hotel of unmistakable character - a luminous, tubular composition anchored at a private marina on the Caribbean coast of the Greater Cancun area, where the mirror surface of sheltered water meets a sky that shifts from turquoise to molten amber at dusk. The program is as generous as it is precise: guest suites, a members club, a waterfront restaurant, and dedicated sailboat and catamaran berths - all gathered beneath a single, continuously curved envelope that speaks the language of luxury nautical design. Our studio conceived the architecture as both vessel and destination, a place where the boundary between hospitality and open sea dissolves entirely.

Our studio made an unconditional commitment to hemp-based construction systems as the exclusive material palette for this project - a decision rooted equally in ecological integrity and the expressive possibilities of a genuinely novel building technology. Structural panels and infill walls are composed of hempcrete - a cast composite of hemp shiv and natural lime binder - delivering exceptional thermal mass, natural vapour regulation, and a carbon-negative lifecycle that no conventional material can match in this climate. The high-stress structural connections, deck fittings and marine-contact components are formed from high-strength hemp bio-polymers - among the strongest hemp-derived composites available - chosen for their resilience and resistance to salt and humidity where a floating building demands both. Exterior surfaces are finished in hemp stucco and hemp lime plaster, their pale, slightly textural quality catching the Caribbean light with a warmth that is entirely its own. Interior surfaces throughout the suites and club spaces are dressed in woven hemp fabrics and hemp textiles, selected and detailed according to the personal sketches of our design team - soft, durable, and free of synthetic chemistry.

The Greater Cancun coast records mean annual temperatures between 25 and 32 degrees Celsius, with prevailing easterly trade winds arriving consistently from the sea - a gift that our studio placed at the centre of the passive ventilation strategy. The cylindrical geometry of the building volumes is not arbitrary: curved facades deflect and accelerate wind along the deck, drawing fresh air through operable clerestory panels in the roof profile while exhausting warm air at the apex without mechanical assistance. Deep overhangs and continuous horizontal solar shading screens protect all glazing from direct solar gain during the high-sun months of May through September, while the thermal mass of the hempcrete walls absorbs daytime heat and re-radiates it during the cooler evening hours when the marina fills with guests.

The landscape strategy extends the ecological logic of the building into the water and along the dock edges. Planting pockets integrated into the promenade deck are filled with native coastal species - sea grape, buttonwood, and Caribbean royal palm - whose deep root systems require no irrigation beyond natural rainfall. Submerged panels along the berth pilings support seagrass colonisation, restoring a marine habitat corridor that benefits both biodiversity and water clarity. The outdoor deck season in this latitude spans the full twelve months, and every terrace, lounging area, and dining platform has been conceived for evening use, with low-level lighting embedded in the deck surface to preserve the spectacular quality of the night sky over the marina.

Luxury, here, is measured not in excess but in the precision of proportion, the silence of a material that breathes, and the grace of a building that rests on water as lightly as the vessels it welcomes.