Three circular buildings elevated on stilts above a living mangrove reserve — that is the architectural premise at the heart of The St. Regis Kanai Resort, Riviera Maya, and it announces itself immediately in the aerial view, the curved white forms arcing above an unbroken canopy of green. Mexican architect Michael Edmonds of Edmonds International arranged the structures according to the Pleiades constellation, a gesture toward Mayan astronomical tradition that gives the 2023 resort a conceptual grounding that goes well beyond tropical escapism. The curving balconies wrap each floor with floor-to-ceiling glass, so that the Caribbean appears at the end of every sightline, framed by palms and the kind of hard blue sky that makes the horizon feel closer than it is. Interior designer Tatiana Sheveleva of Chapi Chapo Design carried that same cosmological and ecological vocabulary into the 124 rooms and 19 suites, where walnut headboards are carved into geometric patterns that echo cenote formations and Mayan motifs, and pale stone flooring shifts the palette from the warmth of the woodwork toward something cooler and more aquatic. The restaurant floor — a deep green and cream checkerboard tile beneath a canopy of woven rattan pendants and warm timber ceiling — brings an earthier, more festive register to the dining experience. At the infinity pool, sculpted in-water loungers curve at the waterline like something drawn from a modernist sculpture park. The overall effect is less resort convention and more a considered meditation on place.

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