The world renowned hotel designer sat down with us to chat innovation, his eponymous collection of retreats, and why he wants his projects to have purpose.
From Sri Lanka to Bali to Thailand, it seems Asia’s hospitality business has really undergone somewhat of a renaissance around sustainable hotels. And one of the long-standing mavens leading the charge on the design front is Bill Bensley of BENSLEY. Based in Thailand, the studio has completed properties across the globe, not only working with eco-friendly materials, but designing for specific sites in a way that has less impact on the environment.
I started off studying as a Landscape Architect, first in California and later at Harvard – back then I could not afford to stay at Motel 6, so hotels weren’t really on my radar. However just after graduation, I landed a job in Singapore and a week later I was on a plane to Bali to design a pool and the gardens for the Bali Hyatt. I was smitten.
As time went on, I found that a lot of the time, as a landscape designer, it was my job to hide or shrub up the unresolved bits of the project like AC units that the engineers left behind. And I was shrubbing up architecture that I did not like, which didn’t sit right with me. I thought that if I did my own architecture, then I’d have no one to blame but myself, and I thought I should give it a try. I did, and it worked! The same went for interiors. If you don’t try, you’ll never know!
With hotels, we have the wonderful opportunity to create an alternate universe for people. For a few days we can create a completely unique experience for them and take them to a whole other world – from the tableware they dine off to the bed they sink into to the bath they soak in to the lift they go up and down in… it is all made specifically to tell the story we want to share and teach them about.
I chose hospitality design over residential design or commercial design as operators have to, by contract, maintain the hotels and keep our designs looking in good nick, and often call us back for a refresh.
Read our full review of Bensley’s JW Marriott Phu Quoc Emerald Bay.
One of the best examples, I think, is the Capella Ubud. As a landscape architect to begin with, my first goal is always to respect what Mother Nature has given us. I talked my client out of building a 120-room Novotel that would have destroyed the forest completely, instead building a 24 tent camp that tip toes ever so softly on the land, and did not change drainage patterns.
Tented hotels, by nature, are far more environmentally savvy than your average hotel. They allow for two of my mantras: that of Minimal Intervention – reading the lay of the land and building between or around trees rather than cutting them down – as well as High Yield Low Impact. The Capella Ubud has very little impact on the land, while its yield is incredibly high: the nightly rate here is the highest in all of Bali. These principles tie into environmentally conscious building.
At Capella Ubud we saved a sacred valley from being destroyed by a 120 room hotel, while sourcing the majority of our building materials and interiors locally, or upcycling antiques. We try to bring back lost crafts which are also far more conscious of their effect on the earth – for instance at Capella Ubud, traditional Kamasan painters, who use a limited palette of natural dyes, painted huge ceiling panels for our lumbung (rice barn) inspired restaurant. Things like upcycling, sourcing local, using recycled materials, being careful about building orientation and using cross ventilation – they are all basic eco-friendly design concepts that can be easily integrated. I wrote all about them in my white paper on Sustainability, which is choc full of ideas.
Figuring out a way to keep all 856 coconut trees at the Four Seasons Koh Samui intact was a huge challenge but now it’s one of our trademark skills, so I am grateful for it! I knew the right thing to do was to build a hotel without ripping out ANY of the trees on the very steep site, as the terrain would slip and the drainage patterns would be destroyed. So we set about mapping and measuring every single tree – and designing villas with a small architectural footprint that fit between them.
We also took the time to set out on to the site all of the architecture in temporary stakes and strings, checking the views from different parts of the room and seeing where a trunk might have to pop through a terrace or a bedroom! It was hard, but in Koh Samui it allowed for the placement of 70 villas which perch above and within the trees, and the 856 coconut trees which graced the site stay intact.
Once we mastered that we repeated the exercise at Capella Ubud as well as my own Shinta Mani Wild. Building WILD was probably the hardest thing I have ever done, for a myriad of reasons, including that it is so much easier to spend someone else’s money than my own!
When I started out in Singapore, Bali, and Hong Kong, sustainability was NOT on the radar. Gradually people have gone from wrinkling their noses at the idea of upcycling, to loving it and it being a trend!
Over the years, clients have become more and more receptive about sustainability and it makes my day when we are approached for that very reason. Now my dream is to build a hotel made of 100% recycled materials… How cool would that be? I think we are well on the way, as this fall I am opening an Intercontinental here in Thailand where the rooms are upcycled train carriages, and people are already so excited to visit!
I am not an avid social media user myself – although I hear my husband Jirachai @baan_botanica is quite popular! – so I don’t really think of it. However, I do fancy myself an artist in the last couple of years. But that, all in all, is just part of being a good designer.
Why thank you! It’s always such a thrill to hear that. I hope we can check in some day soon.
To understand the BENSLEY Collection first you must know the story of The Shinta Mani Foundation. It was started by my good friend and business partner Sokoun Chanpreda, the kindest man on earth. He started the Foundation to help his homeland Cambodia as it emerged from the wreckage left by the Khmer Rouge. Sokoun first hired me to design his Hotel de la Paix in Siem Reap. We had so much fun that when he started a small guest house I climbed aboard to create a school where we could train young Cambodians in five star hospitality. We offer students free education and stipends to support their families while they study. I never miss a graduation.
That guesthouse grew into Shinta Mani Shack, then Shinta Mani Angkor, which has now grown to a full chain of hotels. A percentage of each guest stay goes back to the Foundation and funds everything from wells and clean drinking water to schools, homes, healthcare, micro loans for small businesses, a seed sharing program to help people grow better food, and of course our hospitality school. Very few of our guests actually realise that 5% of their room rate goes to the admin costs of the Shinta Mani Foundation, which lets us in turn use 100% of the donations that we gather in the field effectively.
Read our full review of the Bensley Collection Pool Villas at Shinta Mani Angkor.
The Foundation’s philosophy of “A hand up, not a hand out” has stayed with me and taught me ever so much. In every project I do now there must be a meaning, a purpose to do some good. It can be as simple as the education of a guest as to a certain part of local history to as complex as educating a village of children or providing them dental care. My own purpose now is to use our hotels to aid in conservation, wildlife protection, and higher education and or cleaner water for the less fortunate. As I tell my new clients: I have done lots of unique pretty hotels. Now I want to do unique pretty hotels with a purpose!
With the BENSLEY collection hotels we managed to take this a step further. My big thrill in all of this is not about owning some fluffy beds, or creating a “luxury” hotel brand that bears my name – it is about using hospitality to help folks that need it, in a way that is sustainable.
At Shinta Mani Wild that percentage of the room rate funds the patrol of the Cardamom forest by Wildlife Alliance, helping them fight illegal poaching and logging daily. We sell the rooms (fabulous tents with every amenity and utter privacy) for a minimum of two nights, at a couple of thousand dollars. The camp was built by locals, many of them ex-poachers with no other work in this remote place, who were trained by the Shinta Mani Hospitality school to become hoteliers. So we are ticking off the boxes of profitability, wildlife conservation, social responsibility and empowerment. It is also a sustainable business – both in terms of the hotel (built without cutting down any trees, solar power, water collection, plastic free supply chain, farm & foraging) but also of the business – this model of hospitality will continue long after I am gone, and keep offering an incredible hotel experience that powers conservation.
An experience I can get nowhere else. That is true luxury nowadays – having the forest to oneself, hearing the chorus of the jungle from your desktop bathtub in total privacy. That is why every summer, pre-COVID, I disappeared to Mongolia for a few months of disconnected fishing, hiking, horseback riding, camping and drawing, inviting friends and my designers of BENSLEY, taking them from the urban jungle that is Bangkok to the complete wilderness!
There are quite a few – Awasi in the Atacama Desert, Huka Lodge in New Zealand, Hoshinoya in Kyoto, the Ballyfin in Ireland and Mombo in Botswana. These are hands down heart stopping – all of them, because they offer such unique experiences.
Depends on who I am travelling with – with friends it is restaurant dining; for work, room service with a side of Netflix.
Spa. I’m more of a runner than a swimmer and love having a foot massage while I answer my emails in the evening.
I want to be there before the opening to put on all the finishing touches myself, for every project is like one of my children, and they have got to look good for the first day of school! We do a photoshoot too of course, while everything is pristine. And then once the doors are open… well, we love a good party at BENSLEY!
Find out more about the wonderful world of BENSLEY
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