5 Hotels With The Best Architecture And Design, According To The Michelin Guide

Luxury today is not just about where you sleep, but what surrounds you. The MICHELIN Guide's new Architecture & Design Award for 2025 recognises hotels that treat design as more than decoration - it is part of the story. These are places where space, light, and material create feeling; where structure becomes experience. Part of the MICHELIN Key system, this new award celebrates properties that excel in thoughtful hospitality, sustainable planning, and spatial design. The nominees highlight how global architecture is pushing hotels beyond beauty into purpose. The winners will be announced on October 8, 2025.

What Is The MICHELIN Key?

The MICHELIN Key works much like the MICHELIN Star, but it is meant for hotels. It is a symbol of distinction for properties that set new standards in design, comfort, and experience. Hotels can earn One, Two, or Three Keys depending on how far they go in terms of excellence. Alongside this, the 2025 MICHELIN Guide will honour four new categories: Architecture & Design, Wellness, Local Gateway (for properties that root guests in authentic local culture), and Opening of the Year (for bold new openings). Each has five nominees, selected for innovation and impact. When judging the Architecture & Design nominees, inspectors looked beyond aesthetics. They focused on how design choices - structure, light, material, and context - influence guest experience. Here are the five hotels that made the cut this year.

Here Are 5 Hotels With The Best Architecture And Design For 2025, According To The Michelin Guide

1. Atlantis The Royal, Dubai

Photo Credit: Atlantis The Royal, Dubai

Few hotels define futuristic design like Atlantis The Royal. Its six towers, made of cantilevered blocks that seem to float into one another, reshape Dubai's skyline. The structure connects indoor and outdoor worlds with garden terraces, shaded corridors, and private lounges, giving the entire property the sense of a vertical community rather than a single building. Rooms are named "Skyscapes" and "Seascapes", and every corner echoes water - cascading pools, private fountains, and mood-lit aquariums. The 22nd-floor infinity pool stretches 90 metres across the sky, overlooking the Gulf, while a dramatic skybridge links the towers above. Behind the scenes, advanced LED visuals and cutting-edge tech add a quiet spectacle. With 15 restaurants, this is as much an architectural statement as it is a playground for design lovers.

Also Read: Why You Should Dine At These Michelin-Starred Indian Restaurants In Dubai

2. Shebara Resort, Saudi Arabia

Photo Credit: Shebara Resort, Saudi Arabia

From Dubai's futuristic lines to Saudi Arabia's reflective calm, Shebara Resort sits like a series of floating pearls along the Red Sea coast. Each of its 73 villas is shaped like a shimmering orb, designed to mirror the sea and sky. Thirty-eight of those villas hover above the water on slender stilts that protect marine life, creating an almost weightless impression. The villas were built off-site to reduce environmental impact. The resort operates on its own solar farm and runs desalination and water recycling systems. Interiors are minimal and reflective, using polished steel and natural light to enhance the surroundings rather than compete with them. With five sea-facing restaurants (including an omakase bar and a family grill) plus an indoor-outdoor spa and guided night snorkelling through bioluminescent waters, Shebara proves that sustainability and spectacle can coexist.

3. Rosewood Sao Paulo, Brazil

Photo Credit: Rosewood Sao Paulo, Brazil

At Rosewood Sao Paulo, modern design meets cultural revival. Housed in the restored Cidade Matarazzo complex, this 93-metre tower rises as a vertical garden wrapped in a wooden lattice and adorned with more than 10,000 native trees. It is a powerful statement about reconnecting urban life with nature. The property includes 160 guestrooms, over 100 residential suites, dual pools, and multiple restaurants. Interiors follow Rosewood's "Sense of Place" philosophy, with locally sourced wood, marble, and fabrics. The art collection features more than 450 original works by 57 Brazilian artists, making the hotel feel like a living gallery. The MICHELIN Guide notes the spa's "healing chamber lined with mirrors and shelves of over 400 Brazilian quartz crystals" - a calm counterpoint to the energy of Sao Paulo outside.

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4. Benesse House, Japan

Photo Credit: Benesse House, Japan

On the Japanese island of Naoshima, Benesse House offers a quiet reminder that architecture can be art itself. Designed by Tadao Ando, the property fuses museum and accommodation into one. Its four wings - Museum, Oval, Park, and Beach - each interact differently with land, sea, and light. Guests can wake up in minimalist rooms overlooking the Inland Sea and then wander directly into installations by major contemporary artists. Concrete, glass, and geometry frame every view. Some rooms can only be accessed by a private monorail. Throughout, the design blurs boundaries between built space and the natural world. It's a signature Ando effect that turns each stay into contemplation.

5. Villa Nai 3.3, Croatia

Photo Credit: Villa Nai 3.3, Croatia

Tucked into the rocky slopes of Dugi Otok island, Villa Nai 3.3 proves that quiet design can speak loudest. Built using stone excavated from the site itself, the hotel feels like part of the landscape rather than an addition to it. The result is a seamless balance between luxury and restraint. Surrounded by a 40,000-square-metre olive grove, the property uses natural materials - Italian marble, warm wood, and muted tones - to mirror its environment. Each of its eight rooms includes skylights and patios that open toward the sea. A restaurant overlooking the grove features olive oil pressed on the estate, and the saltwater pool and self-sustaining water systems (desalination, rain reuse, filtration) underline the hotel's eco-luxury ethos.

Together, these five hotels show that architecture has moved from backdrop to experience. Whether it is a tower that feels like a garden or a resort that floats like light, design now defines how we remember a stay. The MICHELIN Guide's new award celebrates this shift - reminding us that good design is not only about form, but feeling.