Sun-splashed beaches have long been the main draw for vacationers in Baja, Mexico.

With all the glitzy-hip hotels opening in New York City these days, you could get very tired of the boutique approach that went into full throttle after Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell opened Morgans Hotel in 1984.

Program: A 136,000-square-foot, 121-bedroom resort on a 65-acre private nature reserve. Located about two and a half hours from Shanghai, in Zhejiang Province, the project draws on African and Asian construction styles with conference facilities, a spa, three swimming pools, horse stables, a clubhouse, a restaurant, a teahouse, and a yoga pavilion. Design concept and solution: Fusing nature and luxury, the architects wanted the reserve's guest rooms to feel like an extension of the landscape. The rooms take the form of individual tree-top villas (concentrated on the west side of the site) and huts (primarily on the east side), all

While India's Park Hotel group has forged a reputation over its 44-year history for boutique luxury establishments, its brazenly sculptural, 270-room hotel in Hyderabad is the first it has built from scratch.

Program: An 18-story, 570,487-square-foot hotel with 182 rooms, 9 conference rooms, a fitness club, a top-floor restaurant with panoramic views, retail space, and five levels of below-ground parking. Design concept and solution: Rather than design a rectilinear tower, the architects imagined the Vienna Sofitel as an abstract volume of tilting planes of glass. They gave the structure—which is concrete for the building's first five stories and a mix of steel and concrete for the remainder—a trapezoidal footprint. With a mix of gray, black, white, mirrored, and transparent glass, the facade produces a dynamic range of reflections. The five-story base of

Program: A five-story, 347,125-square-foot hotel with a total of 246 guest rooms, 66 residential apartments, a presidential suite, a basement spa and pool, and retail space. The project, which backs up onto the Eurostar train station, is a restoration and expansion of a 19th-century Victorian Gothic railway hotel designed by George Gilbert Scott. A new five-story wing on the west side of the site contributes the majority (189) of the bedrooms. Design concept and solution: RHWL and Richard Griffiths wanted to restore the interiors and highlight the building's details with minimal interference, and to integrate the new wing naturally into

Airport hotels are rarely, if ever, listed in travel guides as “worth a visit.”