Basalt Paradise: How HERTZ Architects Transformed Stone and Silence into a Luxury Resort near Pavagadh

Basalt Paradise by HERTZ Architects | Top 6 Finalist in the Architecture -Hospitality category at the VOX Architecture Ideas 2024 competition — a retreat where stone becomes sculpture and silence speaks.

Project Name: Basalt Paradise
Location: Vadodara, Gujarat
Year: 2023
Area: 51500 sq. ft.

2025 Finalist

Category – Architecture - Hospitality

Tushar Mhaiskar, Ronak Kambodia & Zain Nizami

Hertz Architects

HERTZ Architects is the story of four friends turned collaborators, whose bond began in the corridors of their university between 2009 and 2014. What started as spirited conversations about design, ideas, and dreams quickly transformed into a deep-rooted friendship built on mutual growth and creative ambition. Over the years, this bond evolved into a shared vision.

From 2014 to 2016, each member of the founding team pursued their own design journey across architecture, interiors, and landscape. These formative years were filled with experimentation, learning, and hands-on exposure across a diverse scale of projects. In the process, they began collaborating on early commissions, laying the groundwork for what was to come.

In 2017, the practice was formally established, marking a significant milestone — the inception of a design studio driven by collective values and multidisciplinary expertise. HERTZ Architects began taking on projects across architectural and interior design, with a growing reputation for thoughtful and collaborative work.

By 2018, HERTZ Architects had set up its dedicated studio space and welcomed its first batch of employees. This year marked the firm’s transition into a full-fledged design practice, committed to exploring meaningful, human-centered solutions across the built environment.

About the Project

Where Luxury Meets Landscape

The brief was clear: design a resort that reflects the breathtaking natural beauty of Pavagadh, honors the region’s cultural roots, and delivers a world-class hospitality experience. Basalt Paradise responds with powerful restraint and poetic detail. Inspired by the timeless geology of the region, the design embraces basalt, granite, kota stone, and marble chips, crafting a palette that feels native to the land.

Circular motifs in the central spaces draw guests into fluid transitions, while local Pavagadh boulders are embedded across the resort as quiet markers of time—natural sculptures that anchor the architecture into its context. The entire project embodies a harmonious blend of modern comfort and elemental storytelling, where Zen gardens offer meditative pause, and thoughtful spatial sequencing elevates the guest journey.

Architecture That Resonates

Each guest room features a butterfly roof, giving a unique sense of expansiveness even in more compact footprints. The interplay of light, stone, and nature defines the spatial experience—elevating it from simply luxurious to deeply immersive. There’s a tactile honesty in every surface, from landscape to ceiling, that reflects the design ethos of HERTZ Architects.

Founded in 2017 by a collective of university friends turned collaborators, HERTZ Architects is a studio known for blending local narrative, material intelligence, and user-focused design. Based in Ahmedabad, the firm has quickly built a reputation for emotionally resonant, culturally rooted architecture across residential, hospitality, and interior design domains.

With Basalt Paradise, the studio continues its mission of building thoughtful spaces that engage both place and person—delivering a luxury resort that feels timeless, tranquil, and distinctly Indian.