Every hotel has neighbours
it did not choose

The guest list at these hotels is longer than the guest list.

1. 01Reindeer pastures come up to the clearing at Wilderness Hotel Muotka, and old pine forest stands behind them. The lichen under that forest is what the winter here runs on, so the ground is worked land before it is scenery.
2. 02The shallow reedy edge of Jerisjärvi runs past Jeris Lakeside Resort, with fell birch and heath rising behind it. Waterbirds hold to the open lake through the light months and are gone once the ice comes back.
3. 03Above Kiilopää Fell Centre the slope drops its vegetation in bands: dwarf birch, then a lichen mat, then bare stone. That mat breaks under repeated steps, which is why the marked routes matter more here than the view does.
4. 04Old spruce, standing dead wood and a river run past Basecamp Oulanka and carry on into Oulanka National Park. The yard is the only part of the address that is really a hotel; the rest is the park's edge.
5. 05The fields at Heckfield Place are farmed on biodynamic lines and feed the kitchen directly. Cattle, hens, hives, hay meadows and hedgerows share the estate with the house, which sits inside the arrangement rather than above it.
6. 06Meadow grass, old olive terraces and kept hives share the ridge with Borgo Pignano above Volterra. The grass is left long through the flowering and cut afterwards, so the slope stays mixed rather than trimmed.
7. 07Red deer use the open hill and glen behind The Torridon, while a walled kitchen garden works in the shelter of the house. The wall is the whole relationship: one side is intensively grown, the other is left alone.
8. 08Forest covers the interiors of both islands at Song Saa Private Island, and reef lies in the shallows around them. The two meet at the beach, which is why the building keeps to a narrow strip along the shore.
9. 09Chumbe Island Coral Park is a managed reserve with a handful of bungalows inside it. Reef surrounds the shallows and coral rag forest grows straight out of old coral rock, so the whole island is hard ground.
10. 10Behind the casitas at Playa Viva the ground turns to estuary and mangrove, and that still, shaded water holds most of the life on the property. The open sand in front of it holds almost none.
11. 11Montréal Casino & Hotel stands on made ground: Île Notre-Dame was built for Expo and planted afterwards. Park trees and channels hold the interior, and the St Lawrence works against the banks all year.
12. 12The ground between Fallsview Casino Resort and the drop is public parkland along the gorge rim. Trees hold the flat top, the wet rock face holds only low growth, and birds work the air column between them.
13. 13River Rock Casino Resort sits on the bank of a Fraser arm, on flat delta ground. The line between paved site and river life runs along the top of the bank, and the mudflats begin a short way downstream.
14. 14Mixed woodland and the shore of Lake Couchiching surround Casino Rama Resort, on the land of the Chippewas of Rama First Nation. The golf ground works as an in-between surface, with tree belts animals use to cross.
15. 15nine hours Kanazawa has no ground of its own: the plot is paved and built to its edges. The gardens, clipped pines and water channels of the old centre begin a few streets away and belong to the city.
16. 16The plot under First Cabin Atagoyama holds nothing but building, but Atago hill rises directly behind it with old trees and shrine grounds on top. The slope was too steep to build on, so the trees stayed.
17. 17There is no soil at all on the plot of Anshin Oyado Nihonbashi. The canal nearby and the street trees of the block are the ground on offer, and city birds use both of them as corridors.
18. 18Hotel Zen Tokyo fills its plot in Kanda and has no grounds. A small public park round the corner is the whole of it, and because nothing else nearby offers cover, the district's birds concentrate there.

We look at the ground because it is the part of a hotel that was not designed. A meadow, a hive, a pasture, a reef or a park behind a wall keeps its own schedule, and the building has to fit around it. How we read a site, and what we refuse to write, is set out in How We Walk It.

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