IN CONVERSATION WITH FREDERIC SIMON
by Candice Lim

What goes into the designing and planning of some of the most environmentally-friendly and tastefully designed villas in the region? Passionate hotelier and Alila's Managing Director Frederic Simon chats with FuturArc Managing Editor Candice Lim, and shares his thoughts on what it means to be Green for Alila properties, and then some.

The following are excerpts from the interview.

CL: How much management discretion do you have in terms of hiring firms such as WOHA and SCDA to achieve a particular (Green design) outcome of a property?
FS: In terms of Alila Villas, we are very cautious with the owners in terms of the capacity to bring in outside architects; we only work with architects whom we fully trust and who understand the vision of Alila Villas in terms of the space planning, etc. Most of the time we recommend SCDA and WOHA, although we also keep an open mind to other great architects. We go through a controlled review process with the owners to ensure that the architect understands the vision. It's not just about hiring famous or award-winning architects or how talented the architect is—obviously we need to work with talented architects to help us realise our vision—but it's also about understanding the environmental values of Alila. This means adapting to the site; having a very strong environmental sense of destination; reducing the environmental impact; having the best site utilisation in order to create an overall atmosphere which is linked to the environment, linked to the destination, and linked to the community, while being as Green as possible.

We found out that today there is a growing sense of environmental management with all the architects we are working with. When we first approach the owners, we explain very clearly what the environmental policies are. When we develop the first concept there is always an environmental vision attached to that concept, and we found that so far this has always been exceedingly well received and so it hasn't been a hard sell in a lot of ways. All of the partners we work with have always had that inside of them and they really want to protect the site, and most of the time, by reading and looking at our concept and understanding the concept better when we present it to them, we feel that we are often just verbalising what they are already thinking. And when we give it to the architects, we feel that nearly all of them take the brief positively.

CL: How much of the design concept is your own personal vision?
FS: Any project is a collaborative process and it is very important for a successful project first and foremost to have a very aligned vision. If you look at Alila, most of our projects are white field projects and most of the developers have already worked with us before. And if there are new ones, many of them approach us through referrals because they feel how we design and operate our property are aligned with what they want to do. So they are coming in with a very similar vision with what our properties already stand for. For white field projects, the site basically inspires you; we don't think that a property has to be a certain way. It's more about being able to understand the destination—the root of the destination and what the destination stands for. We also need to understand the market potential of a destination. From these two elements there would emerge a kind of a creative concept, an initial concept for us to envision what the guest experience should be, and to ensure that the guest experience is adapted to the market and the site, and obviously to the environment. The environmental part is overriding because the overall atmosphere we want to create needs to be respectful of the environment. That is translated into a concept and that concept has an environmental content, a very detailed one particularly at the early stages—looking at maximising the site in terms of exposure and understanding the key that would create a certain impact on the environment—and being able to translate that into a brief with detailed environmental concerns that is then given to the architect who goes on to express that brief into a conceptual architectural plan, which is then reviewed. During the review, we look at the environmental checklist to ensure that from design process to material selection, we create the least impact on the environment.

(Read the complete interview in the print version of 4Q 2009 edition.)

ECO VILLAS
Designing eco-friendly villas means more than just creating beautiful architecture and taking care of the physical aspects of the destination, it is also about being sensitive to the social context—how the properties look after the communities where they are built and sustain a mutually beneficial relationship in the long run. We take a look at two of the latest environmentally sustainable properties by Alila Villas. Alila Villas Uluwatu in Bali is on track to achieve Green Globe design and build accreditation. It will be the first such project in Indonesia to achieve this. Alila Villas Hadahaa in the Maldives achieved the Green Globe "Building Planning and Design Standard" Certified Status in August 2008. Green Globe is an international benchmarking and certification programme for the travel and tourism industry managed by EC3 Global, a subsidiary of the Australian based research body Sustainable Tourism Co-operative Research Centre, the world's largest source of tourism research. Its standards are based on the Agenda 21 principles for Sustainable Development endorsed by 182 Heads of State at the United Nations Rio Earth Summit in 1992.

To read the complete article, get a copy of the 4Q 2009 edition at our online shop or at newsstands/major bookstores; or subscribe to FuturArc.

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