The Playa Viva Story
In 2005, we were introduced to the land at Playa Viva. We instantly were mystified by its subtle charm, the teaming life of the estuary, the hills overlooking the beach and small lagoon (which turned out to be an archeological site), the broad expanse of beach and the turtle sanctuary. We thought the tiny town of Juluchuca was charming and so we invested in the property. We looked at several options for development. One option would have been to take the land and carve it into lots and sell it. This was the easy route, but it showed lack of leadership and vision. Sandra headed out to Green Build in Atlanta in 2005 and interviewed several experts in sustainable development. Of all the experts, Bill Reed spoke her language and inspired the leadership and vision that we wanted for this project.
We held several design Charettes in 2006 and 2007 and developed the Master Plan behind Playa Viva.
The inspiration behind Playa Viva
We started with a few basic core concepts:
- Casa Viva – a green B&B built in 2000 by the same team behind Playa Viva. Casa Viva utilizes a few of the same concepts. A balance of public and private spaces. Constructed using the of best available green technology at the time including solar thermal water heating, grey water and black water processing, natural building materials, some water capture and solar power, edible landscape, and others. We learned many lessons from owning and managing a small property in Mexico (that is why we are using a Fractional Model).
- New Urbanism and Co-Housing – we borrowed heavily from concepts of new urbanism because we had seen how isolating many beach communities in Mexico had become as beach front lots were carved out along a main road chopping the landscape and communities up into small parcels in the process.
- Regenerative Building – many of these concepts came from hiring Bill Reed and his team who helped us move beyond green and sustainable to regenerative development process. This process made us consider and stay committed to the legacy of our work.
- Community Development – we have a long and successful history of community engagement in Mexico. More importantly, we saw the many concentric and overlapping circles of community that can be created by this type of endeavor.
Playa Viva's sustainable philosophy
Our goal is to be regenerative, not just to make less damage (building green) or net neutral (Sustainable) but to make a significant impact in creating a better local economy, better ecosystem and still have a great business endeavor. We also feel that to be truly sustainable, the values of sustainability need to be core to your people and organization. Sustainability just can't be a department you add because that is part of your marketing message. Sustainability needs to be the way everyone involved in the project thinks and acts, it needs to be core to our DNA! We start with these values, now the challenge is to lead, to transfer and to inculcate these into the whole community that is Playa Viva (and beyond).
