Check out the Michelin Guide’s top 5 ‘Best Architecture and Design Hotels’

2. Shebara Resort, Saudi Arabia

Shebara Resort is the country’s answer to the overwater villas of the Maldives. 73 villas, designed to resemble shimmering pearls, were constructed off-site and transported here nearly complete to minimize disruption. 38 villas sit directly over the water itself, supported by narrow columns meant to disturb as little of the ocean floor as possible. If you want to snorkel among coral reefs, this is your place to be.

Atlantis The Royal, Dubai (Source: Instagram/@theatlantis)

3. Rosewood São Paulo, Brazil

“Designed like a 93-metre-tall, 22-story vertical garden tower, wrapped in wooden lattice and clad with over 10,000 growing trees indigenous to the Mata Atlântica rainforest, the Rosewood tower’s innovative design addresses urban environmental challenges by reintroducing native flora to the metropolitan landscape,” reads the Guide’s website. The stay offers 160 guest rooms and over 100 resident suites along with multiple swimming pools and 6 restaurants.

4. Benesse House, Japan

Conceptualised in 1992 by Tadao Ando, a Pritzker Prize winner and one of Japan’s most renowned architects, the merging gallery spaces of this building create a museum- hotel hybrid in Naoshima. The building premises are divvied up into sections. “While the minimalist concrete form of Museum is partially embedded into the coastal landscape, Oval features an open-air reflecting pool encircled by a sun-drenched portico, Park blurs the line between inside and outside, and Beach, with sightlines aligned with the sea’s surface, creates the impression of a floating structure,” described the website.

5. Villa Nai 3.3, Croatia

Located on the Adriatic island of Dugi Otok, Villa Nai 3.3 sits in the lap of hills. Carved out excavated stone, the hotel is created with the sole purpose of limiting emissions, and inspired by traditional Dalmatian building methods such as dry stone walling. The result is a beautiful amalgamation of “edifice and environment”, that blends together the island’s topography with that of architectural skill and expertise.