THIS ECO-HOTEL IN RIO DE JANEIRO IS A DREAM FOR MINIMALISTS

In the midst of Brazil’s seaside megacity, you’ll find the Janeiro hotel in Leblon, an oceanfront neighborhood away from the touristic epicenter at the Ipanema and Copacabana beaches. From the outside, the architecture of the Janeiro Hotel – with its 18 floors and lots of concrete – might look a bit brutal and not very tempting at first. But with only five rooms on each floor, there is plenty of space for the minimalistic and exquisite interior. By entering the hotel, you will soak up the fine aesthetics. We are pretty sure, you saw their modernist floating staircase, their woven interior details or their Philippe-Starck designed infinity pool with a view across the jungle and mountains somewhere on Instagram. But the best thing about this boutique hotel? It masters an all-over eco-chic concept that combines sustainable luxury with an indoor-outdoor-vibe.

Hotel Janeiro boasts reusable glass bottles and paper straws for beach club beverage service. All-natural toiletries form the Brazilian beauty label Granado, blown glass lamps handcrafted in the south of Brazil from recycled glass bottles, and locally sourced decor and amenities like organic cotton laundry bags made by a community group of weavers. Plus, the hotel restaurant features farm-to-table ingredients. Brazilian hotelier Carlos Werneck and Oskar Metsavaht – artist, designer, sustainability entrepreneur – are the creative minds behind this idea, which they like to call “healthy hedonism”. By the way, the other various projects of Metsavaht are also worth a look, like his sustainable fashion label Osklen, his foundation Insituto-E and his recent awareness initiative ASAP” (“as sustainable as possible”).