hotel balatura

Architect: Milk Architecture & Design

Milk Architecture are excited to have worked on the expansion of Hotel Balatura near the Croatian coast. The hotel is situated in the beautiful Vinodol Valley, surrounded by karst mountains and unspoilt woodland. It already occupied a complex of 300 year old stone houses within a small abandoned village; the houses had been gently molded into a charming retreat hotel with a vegetarian restaurant and an ever changing programme of cultural activities.

We started by discussing and sketching out a wider masterplan with our clever clients to form a long term plan for the village, and then focused on the design of an existing ruined building to create a new cultural venue in the heart of the hotel.

The proportions of the ruin were bigger than the surrounding hotel, which gave us larger and more flexible spaces for yoga, meditation, music, dancing, or literary festivals. We connected the spaces with a dramatic lofty stair hall, then used generous french doors and balconies to spill the activities into a new village square, allowing workshops and performance to overlap in the summer months.

During two challenging pandemic years Balatura went through its metamorphosis to emerge as a stunning destination hotel with a new village square, sparkling pool and cultural home at its heart.