I reflected for quite a while on which project I would choose for my final university project. I needed to pick something that I liked because it was a year working on it. I was between designing a federal prison or a resort spa.

I thought about the federal prison because I wanted to develop a place where the environment had a fundamental impact on the prisoners’ rehabilitation. I believe that there are cases where you can help people change their behaviors. Not all of them, but part of it. The other part, I’m not sure what is the best thing to do. I’m not a sociologist nor a psychologist, so my role is to think about how the environments affect people’s lives. At that time, I didn’t have many references about prisons because the ones in Brazil are definitely not a positive reference for what I was looking for.

Resort spa was a lighter theme and something that I had many references available for. I had an experienced professor who could guide me through the subject, and my chances of being approved in the end were higher. Also, I had an internship at a company that manages big projects, and I had the opportunity to see up close one resort project. This gave me a big understanding about hotel project development. It was fascinating—complex, and everything is integrated somehow.

The first thing I did was pick a site plan. I chose the one the company was working on for project management because it was a gorgeous site in an area pretty close to a resort I went to a few times with my family when I was younger, so I knew the area well. I deleted all the info I had about the original project and started building my own. Pretty hard, by the way. I contacted the City Hall to get some information about the possibility of building a resort spa in that area, because this was a different proposal from the one the company I worked for had in mind. I wanted a bigger resort, divided into something more private and luxurious, and also something more affordable so more people could stay there.

So, I spent six months doing research, building maps, and understanding a hotel’s dynamic. This was the theoretical part of my final project. I didn’t write a lot because I had difficulty getting inspired and I was still working 9–5, Monday to Friday.

This was the abstract:

The Mangaratiba Municipality, especially the District of Conceição de Jacareí, in Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil, is an area of touristic interest and rural development. This area was chosen for the development of a medium-sized spa resort due to its panoramic view and the environmental protection of the adjacent area of Baía da Ilha Grande. The local area and community will benefit from more jobs, in addition to the two other hotels already located in the region.

The hotel will offer five-star services covering both the touristic category and the corporate segment. The project will be developed using the topography as the main design element, integrating the local fauna and flora. One of its main conceptual goals is to preserve the surrounding areas and their unique characteristics.

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