Patina Maldives, Fari Islands

Raw timber, pale stone and flat roofs that seem to float above the sand set the tone at Patina Maldives, Fari Islands. The architecture is by Studio MK27, the São Paulo practice founded by Marcio Kogan, and it gives this corner of North Malé Atoll the look of a Brazilian modernist village laid out on a coral island. The resort opened in 2021 as the first hotel of Patina, a brand created by Capella Hotel Group, and it shares the Fari Islands with The Ritz-Carlton and a marina village.

History

The Fari Islands were planned by Pentland Properties, part of the Singapore-based Pontiac Land group of the Kwee family, as a cluster of resorts around a shared marina. Patina and The Ritz-Carlton both opened there in 2021, after delays caused by the pandemic. Capella Hotel Group, the hotel company in the same family's orbit, launched Patina on the island as a looser, more informal sister to its Capella hotels, with the weight placed on wellbeing, art and plant-forward food rather than ceremony.

Architecture and design

Studio MK27 made its name with modernist houses in Brazil: long horizontal volumes, sliding timber screens, deep overhangs and gardens that run right up to the walls. At Patina the same language appears in pavilions spread across the island, with roofs that reach well beyond the walls for shade and screens that open the rooms to the breeze. Planting is dense and largely native, and paths wind through it, so buildings appear one at a time rather than all at once.

The centrepiece is a Skyspace by the American artist James Turrell, named Amarta: an enclosed chamber with an opening to the sky, where the light appears to change colour around sunrise and sunset. Turrell's Skyspaces are found in museums, universities and private collections around the world, and this one belongs to the resort, so guests can sit in it as the light changes.

Rooms and suites

Accommodation is in pool villas on the beach and over the water, with one, two and three bedroom options, and a group of smaller studios suited to couples and solo travellers. Interiors stay plain, with timber, natural fabrics and wide openings to the lagoon, and the decks and pools serve as the main living space. The larger beach villas have gardens of their own, and the overwater villas have steps straight into the lagoon.

Dining

The restaurant line-up gives unusual weight to plant-based cooking, alongside Japanese and other Asian menus. Fari Marina next door, shared with The Ritz-Carlton, adds a beach club, cafés and shops within easy reach, so a week here does not mean eating in the same few rooms. Private dinners can be set up on the beach or on a villa deck.

Wellness

The spa sits in a quiet part of the island, with treatment pavilions set in the gardens, and the wellbeing programme includes yoga, breathing and sound sessions. The house reef and the dive centre serve divers and snorkellers, and the Skyspace doubles as a place for meditation at the start or end of the day.

Location

The Fari Islands lie in North Malé Atoll, about 45 minutes by speedboat from Velana International Airport, so no seaplane is needed. The marina takes private yachts, and the reefs and channels of the atoll offer drift dives, turtles and reef sharks within a short boat ride. Excursions run to sandbanks and to inhabited islands, where daily Maldivian life carries on beyond the resorts. Patina gives a luxury resort in North Malé Atoll something the atoll had lacked: an architectural identity drawn from somewhere else entirely, applied with discipline to a tropical island.