The Verona-based Studio Apostoli founded by Alberto Apostoli, internationally renowned for its wellness and hospitality design projects, is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. The future? Total wellness emersion.
“Since 1997 I have been working in a niche sector in the world of design” says Alberto Apostoli who, after collecting over 50 international awards, writing books and designing projects from China to the Americas, reaches a new stage in the history of his studio, reaching the 25-year milestone.
The “niche sector” is that of wellness, in which Studio Apostoli has worked as a multidisciplinary practise. In addition to architecture, interior design, engineering, project management and strategic marketing consultancy for the success of Spas, the studio has also driven the founding, researching and promoting of associations dedicated to new legislative or certification methods related to the sector.
The studio has even had a hand in creating key industry and product design trends, obtaining patents and creating its own products, as was the case with ‘Sasha’, a Spa created for Jacuzzi in 2010 which remains an integral product for the American multinational, promoting wellness as a “widespread, democratic” concept that is now also accessible in the private and domestic sphere.
“A lot has changed in the last 25 years and the wellness world has experienced exponential growth that other sectors have not experienced to the same extent. Today, everyone is looking for wellness, and they’re looking for it everywhere; it wasn’t like that before – it’s become a lifestyle. When I approached this area, I found a blank slate on which I could build a great deal: first a philosophy, then projects and then products that would be able to meet specific needs or even anticipate them”, says Apostoli, who now has a diverse team of professionals in his studio, some of whom are foreigners to enable and manage seamless interaction with the diverse markets in which the studio operates.
Following the opening of representative offices in Casablanca and Guangzhou in the early 2000s, Alberto Apostoli subsequently decided to centralise activities in the Italian office, in the province of Verona. He secured the hire of key figures for the development of client relations, in particular, those with a dedicated focus in the areas of Oceania and North and Central America. Indeed, it was within this key area where a partnership was recently forged by the studio with Virtu Resorts & Residences for the design of state-of-the-art Medical SPA complexes in Mexico, Canada and Europe.
Still in North America, the studio has been commissioned to design a Spa within the prestigious Silo Ridge Field Club, a facility making up part of a group of world leading, ultra-luxury facilities. This project will take Studio Apostoli directly to New York State in the next two years, while in Uruguay, in Punta del Este, a 3,000 square metre Spa in the soon-to-open Casa Cipriani will again promote a bespoke format where the “medical” Spa concept will be the predominant feature.
“Never as in recent years has wellness defined and articulated multiform scenarios and we are witnessing a real segmentation of the offering, which should lead to extremely profiled and successful structures, if properly managed and designed.
In addition to the classic theme of ‘relaxation’, there is in fact a revival of thermalism (or hot spring therapeutics) and a push towards the ‘medical’ sector, an industry naturally linked to hospitality that could reach truly significant business revenue and customer figures in the coming decades”, Apostoli explains.
Apostoli, who speaks as an opinion leader at international events and conferences on the various stages of the sector’s growth, is a founding and promoting partner of associations such as The Sustainable SPA Association, an industry association founded in 2020 in the United Kingdom to guide facilities along a “green” path. It supports initiatives from energy savings to reduced use of water in Spa design as well as promoting strategies and beauty products that respect the environment and the person.
The merging and interplay between wellness and hospitality defines the path of the Studio in an increasingly evident way, which today deals with the theme of hospitality in a global manner.
After the award-winning interior and wellness design project of the entire Lefay Resort & SPA Dolomiti, the team is now looking to replicate that success in the Lefay Resort & SPA Lago di Garda, in the Lefay Avalon Resort in Montalcino, and the first three complexes of the aforementioned Virtu Resorts & Residences. All the while, other accommodation centres in different regions of Italy are being designed by the studio, including various Spa areas, common areas and suites, for private operators and celebrated international brands.
“Taking on hotel interiors and becoming the reference architect for all its various dimensions is now becoming the natural culmination of our 25 years of work. It is an ever more stimulating series of challenges that leads me to apply the holistic and wellness philosophy in an increasingly pervasive and conscious way, from the private to the collective, from minor details to the macro scale. And on the subject of large scale, I am realising a dream long stowed in the drawer: to create an ideal place where creativity, architecture and design can lead everyone to joyous bliss and total well-being.”
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