Strung along Chaweng Beach's quieter northern fringe, where Koh Samui's most developed shoreline softens into coconut groves and calmer water, Anantara Lawana Resort and Spa draws its entire design identity from the island's Hainanese Chinese settler heritage — a cultural thread that most Thai beach resorts entirely ignore. The architecture works through the language of southern Chinese vernacular building: steeply pitched clay-tiled roofs, dark-stained timber column structures, latticed screens, and open-sided pavilions connected by water channels and pebble-laid garden paths. At night, the arrival pavilion — a deep-eaved timber hall approached via a narrow reflecting pool — carries the atmosphere of a Chinese merchant's compound, paper lanterns and framed calligraphy completing the register. The 122 villas and suites continue that conversation at close range. Bedrooms are lined in charcoal-toned timber boarding, the four-poster beds dressed with gauze canopies suspended from industrial ceiling rails, olive and ochre textile runners grounding the palette in something more Southeast Asian than specifically Chinese. Where upper-floor rooms face the Gulf of Thailand, bifold French doors open onto dark-timbered balconies framing views across palms to small offshore islands — the water an improbable shade of turquoise that no interior palette could compete with. The beach club works a different register entirely: white-rendered curving staircases and a reflective infinity pool step down toward the sand, the contrast with the resort's Sino-vernacular vocabulary deliberate rather than confused.

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