Playa Viva: ¡Viva Mexico!

What do you do when you have an iconic piece of glamping accommodation but want to build more? Playa Viva’s treehouse has adorned many of the most discerning travelers’ Insta feeds. But together with Nomadic Resorts, owner David Leventhal has created new travel inspiration. Will Rusbridge finds out more.

Surrounded by the rugged, unspoiled beauty of the western coast of Mexico, Playa Viva, a luxurious and environmentally conscious resort, sits between the Pacific Ocean and the Sierra Madre Mountains, creating breath-taking views no matter which direction you’re looking. Just outside of the village of Juluchuca, Playa Viva is situated on a mile of pristine and private beach.

An open-air resort, Playa Viva is designed to immerse guests in the local area making sure that even when inside their accommodation, they are surrounded by its beauty. Leaving the accommodation open and well ventilated, guests are constantly met with incredible views and the sounds of the local wildlife and waves crashing onto the nearby shore. Accommodation comes in many different shapes and forms, from deluxe suites to EcoCasitas and their award-winning Ocean Front Treehouse.

It was on the balcony of this very treehouse that Steven Shea, a returning guest, who was visiting his partner during a wellness retreat she was hosting at the resort, would play a very important part in bringing about the next phase of Playa Viva. Whilst his partner was leading her group retreat, Steven had stayed behind to try and capture footage of the beautiful surroundings with a drone. Having covered the land, the drone was directed out towards the sparkling waters of the Pacific Ocean. Whilst watching, with an eagle-eye, for signs of underwater life, he spotted something unusual. From a distance it almost looked like there may have been a fault with the drone’s camera, a patch of flickering pixels on an otherwise completely blue ocean. As the camera zoomed in and the picture became clearer each of these pixels began to take form and were revealed to be a squadron of manta rays. As they moved together in near perfect synchronicity, individuals would occasionally break rank and emerge from the deep blue water, their backs arched and wings pointing upwards as if they were birds about to take flight. It was this footage that gave David Leventhal, owner of Playa Viva, the inspiration for the next phase of the resort.

Manta Ray poster by Rodolfo Baquier

David has always thought that a sense of place is incredibly important. When looking for ideas on what came next for Playa Viva, he decided that the only way forward was to take inspiration from the surrounding area and incorporate it into the resort. What was going to be built had to be true to the area and not some alien structure, no matter how impressive. And what could be more true to the area than the manta rays that had been seen in the ocean a stone’s throw from the resort’s beach?

Alongside the difficulty of making sure that the structures that were to be added to the resort were natural to the local area, there was also another problem. “With the original treehouse becoming such an iconic structure, there was always a question of, where do we go from here?” explains David. Originally there had been ideas about replicating this structure, sticking with a design that had been tried, tested and very positively received. But to replicate it to the point where the design became the majority of the accommodation would detract from what originally made it so great. So, David decided that the new accommodation had to be different, but also had to work with what was already there.

Gathering his ideas and the footage that had been captured, David reached out to Rodolfo Bacquier, a Mexican illustrator and designer based in Brooklyn, New York. “We’d collaborated together before, most recently on the label for our in-house mescal. We’ve always worked well together, so I reached out and asked for some design drawings of the ideas that I had, so that I could better communicate what was in my mind’s eye to the architects. Rodolfo was the bridge in translating my ideas to something more concrete for the architects to visualize,” says David.

The next step of the process involved getting in touch with Nomadic Resorts, an architectural design company who specialise in creating sustainable projects that reflect a true sense of place and fit organically into their natural surroundings. David had met Louis Thompson, CEO of Nomadic Resorts, previously and knew that they would be a perfect fit for the project.

Manta Ray Concept Sketch

Bringing in Olav Bruin, Creative Director at Nomadic Resorts, meetings were scheduled to go over the ideas and make sure that they were in-line with what was being envisioned. “Working with Louis and Olav was an amazing experience, extremely collaborative. During the early meetings, we were working through not just how to manufacture the design, but how we were going to tackle building it. It meant that when production started, we hit the ground running and the very few issues that came up were able to be fixed very quickly,” says David.

The preparation that David had done up until this point started to pay off, “There was a lot of input from David which was great, it really planted the seeds for the design and helped bring it to life,” says Olav, with Louis adding that, “David was an incredible client to work with. There’s a traditional experience of luxury that has formed in the past that is very rigid and unyielding. A checklist of things that have to be included that don’t always match the feel of the place where they will be located. David was more flexible with these ideas and really wanted to push the boundaries of what we were allowed to do.”

Playa Viva's famous Original Treehouse

But unfortunately, while it had been smooth sailing up until this point, it was about to become a lot more difficult as Playa Viva and Nomadic Resorts were hit with a barrage of problems. The ongoing Pandemic meant that Nomadic Resorts had to work remotely, communicating with the team at the site via video calls. “Usually, we always look for local craftsmen and materials to anchor the project to the local area and culture. We train local craftsmen in the specifics of bamboo construction and work with them to complete the project, but due to the pandemic, this wasn’t possible,” says Louis. On top of this, global supply chains were struggling meaning that it was a lot more difficult to acquire the resources needed. And as if this wasn’t enough, Hurricane Rick hit, reaching the resort on October 26th.

All of this threatened the anxiety-inducing 6-7 month timescale that David had asked for the project. “On previous projects, we have usually spent around a year on the design alone and construction usually takes around a year and a half,” says Olav. But a solution was already in mind and Nomadic Resorts began reaching out to Jörg Stamm who they describes, with reverence, as a master bamboo builder. Once Jörg was onboard, he proceeded to bring in a multi-national team of bamboo experts to train and support the existing Mexican team of builders, meaning that construction was able to start immediately. “The team that was assembled to complete the project was made up of people who we’d worked with before and who all knew each other. It meant that we knew each other’s preferences and skill levels which all helped speed the process up,” says Louis.

Playa Viva

Kev Steele

And so, construction began on six new treehouses that would be added to the existing structures at Playa Viva. Each of the treehouses would take the form of the inspiration for the project, a manta ray. Placed in a similar layout to the rays that had been captured on film, the new accommodation would form its own squadron and when looked at from a bird eye view, would look like a single colossal manta ray. The designs that had been drawn up many months ago by Rodolfo of a huge manta ray emerging from the palm trees began to take form, brought to life by the team at Nomadic Resorts.

Jörg led the construction team in creating the structures using bamboo that had been through borax treatment. This is where fresh green bamboo is left to soak in a bath of borax salt for one week. The bamboo is then taken out and left to dry. During the drying process the bamboo will shrink around 10% in diameter, trapping the salt within the fibres and strengthening it. Concrete is then strategically injected in the joints of the bamboo poles that form the structure leaving it incredibly sturdy.

Manta Treehouse

Ryan Forbes

Bamboo is an incredible building material boasting unparalleled sustainability, but it isn’t without its downsides. While bamboo is strong, it is also vulnerable. When exposed to rain for extended periods of time without the chance to dry out, it can start to rot. The design of the accommodation took this into account however, and the roof of each unit, created to look like the wings of a manta ray, overhangs the sides of the structure forming eaves.

Incredibly, the team involved in the project were able to complete the work in a mere seven and a half months and the results are simply spectacular. And what has the reaction been? “Incredibly positive,” says David, “We were closed for almost five months in 2021 for construction and it still ended up being just short of our best year since we opened. During Covid our guests were mostly domestic, but as soon as the first vaccines were being offered, travel became more international again. Even during Omicron, we’ve seen no significant drop in business.”

Manta Treehouse

Ryan Forbes

To find out more about Playa Viva, visit their website at playaviva.com

To find out more about Nomadic Resorts, find their website at nomadicresorts.com.