Riva degli Etruschi Eco_Resort
A visionary eco-resort master plan for a three-kilometre stretch of the Tuscan coastline near San Vincenzo — 150 zero-carbon prefabricated villas, wellness and sports facilities, and a restored coastal landscape reimagining resort hospitality through sustainability and landscape immersion.
Commissioned by the Lisi family of Florence through their hospitality network Hospitaliter, the Riva degli Etruschi Eco_Resort master plan reimagines a historic thirty-hectare resort property along three kilometres of the Tuscan coastline near San Vincenzo. Acquired by the family in 2017, the site sits on the Costa degli Etruschi where Mediterranean pine forests meet the Tyrrhenian Sea — a landscape of extraordinary natural and cultural heritage that demanded an architecture rooted in environmental responsibility.
Design
The master plan proposes 150 new private villas built to the highest environmental standards using zero-carbon prefabrication techniques. Constructed from recycled timber, local stone, and iron — with asphalt and cement abolished entirely — each dwelling is positioned to maximize views toward the Mediterranean while minimizing its footprint on the land. The scheme also restructures existing residences and hotel rooms, reducing overall bed capacity from 2,000 to 1,400 to elevate the quality of the guest experience. A 3,000-square-metre covered wellness centre with an additional 2,000 square metres of outdoor facilities, together with a new sports complex, restaurants, and cultural spaces, complete the program across approximately 40,000 square metres of new and renovated buildings.
Landscape
The landscape design, developed in collaboration with the renowned Italian landscape architect Paolo Pejrone, surrounds every dwelling with gardens, organic farm landscapes, vineyards, and medicinal herb plantings. All vehicles are banned from the resort village; guests arrive through cultivated fields that establish an immediate connection between land and sea. Natural ventilation, water recycling, and renewable energy production are integrated throughout, with biodiversity and permeable surfaces prioritized to preserve the open coastal ecology. A newly acquired thirty-hectare expansion accommodates sports venues and organic agricultural production in partnership with Slow Food.
Vision
Riva degli Etruschi Eco_Resort represents a new model for coastal hospitality — one in which ecological responsibility, spatial narrative, and architectural innovation are inseparable. The project exemplifies Asymptote’s belief that sustainability is not a constraint but a generative design discipline, capable of producing architecture that is at once luxurious, responsive to its environment, and deeply connected to place.
