Desert island digs: retreats and resorts with water, water all around | News | Architonic

After a two-hour boat journey to get there, visitors to the Castaway Island Resort on the Cat Ba archipelago in North Vietnam are in need of the healing properties of seclusion by the time they get there. Mercifully, the white sands of the 3,000-sqm private beach are flanked on three sides by steep slopes of forest. Backing into the trees, the resort provides five detached huts with space for 160 guests, along with accompanying pavilions for their most basic needs. Surrounded by tropical nature, the resort’s 13 structures are formed from treated bamboo frames, thatched roofs and recycled timber shutters to reduce the environmental impact of the project, ‘Despite the construction, the site is left intact,’ explain the project architects VTN Architects, specialists in bamboo construction, ‘the nature preserved thanks to using environmentally-friendly bamboo.’