Some giant hands coming out of the Grand Canal in Venice to denounce climate change and others intertwined forming a bridge. These striking sculptures by Lorenzo Quinn were the inspiration for one of the most photographed pieces on Instagram this summer: a giant hand squeezing an orange. The hand behind this sculpture is the fashion studio, Ilmiodesign, and its fruit, SLVJ Marbella, the first location of the successful group in a beach club format that opened in July. And it is that the design has become the best cover letter to differentiate a space from the competition. To achieve this astonishing effect, Andrea Spada and Michele Corbani, founders of Ilmiodesign, have opted for “a tropical forest organized in micro-spaces, where apparently there is no geometric order but everything is designed to take advantage of the different areas, in which we incorporate elements surprise like the aforementioned shower in the shape of a hand squeezing half an orange or the main bar where two monkey hands come out of the ground and hold the giant ceiling”. Innovating is the key to finding contrast: “We decided to put color in both the furniture and the planters, reinterpreting classic clay elements with pastel tones,” explain the Italians, architects of the interior design of the Tatel restaurants or the future Hotel Royal Hideaway Canfranc ( huesca).

The fever for prestigious architecture and interior design studios and proper names that breathe various outdoor spaces, such as beach clubs, rooftops or terraces, and which pose great challenges when approaching the project, is evident: “These spaces have a very casual connotation, it is important to reflect their fun, relaxed, fresh side; they are designed to recreate, disconnect and enjoy, and therefore they must be conceived taking this idiosyncrasy into account. In the case of SLVJ Marbella, we had an added difficulty and that is that It works as a beach club during the day and as a restaurant at night, so the beach space had to be versatile enough to project a pleasant sensation at night as if we were in a private garden with sea views”, they detail Spada and Corbani.

The proximity to the sea, the saltpeter and the humidity of many of these places also condition the projects: “It must be taken into account that both the furniture and the fabrics are suitable for outdoors and that all the materials have a durability certified by the companies themselves that supply them, etc. Even so, we wanted this beach club to dialogue with the natural environment that surrounded it and, for this reason, we opted for wood, which, although it is a living material, is worked and modified depending on the environment in which it is going to be or is going to be installed, although it requires periodic maintenance”, they add.

Urban terraces also drink from design to hurry up the last month of summer and the mild autumn that awaits us. Lorenzo Castillo is responsible for the reconversion of the Santo Mauro hotel, where its charming garden for dining or having a cocktail is a continuation of the style of the French palace that it was originally: “We wanted to return its past of aristocratic splendor with the choice of furniture of black lacquered iron, typical of the luxury hotels of the beginning of the century, mixed with pieces of exotic marble and bronze that we designed especially for the palace.To give it the exotic touch that these houses had in the time of Empress Eugenia, we included some pieces of rattan and bamboo, typical of the Turkish and Chinese styles that were so fashionable at the end of the 19th century, while in order to modernize and update all those historicist references, what I did was use my collections of outdoor fabrics, which are inspired by, with its geometric prints and vibrant colors, in the fabrics of the 60s and 70s of the Dolce Vitta, Capri, Amalfi or the most sophisticated Riviera”.

In short, sophistication and design, without leaving Spain.