When I walk into a space, I’m not sure I consciously focus on anything in particular. I take in how it feels first. I try to approach it with a certain innocence, without preconceptions, and there’s always something that catches my attention: a shadow, the way light enters a room. I think everything starts there, because without light, there is no space. The same windowless box could feel like a relaxing retreat or a prison cell, depending on how you light it. Light brings things to life. It gives them presence.
That’s why I’m wary of off-the-shelf solutions. No two plots are the same, no two settings are identical, and no two cities are experienced in quite the same way. Treating every place and every space as something unique isn’t about making a statement. It’s the only meaningful way to begin a project.
I owe much of this way of seeing things to my mother, who taught me, quite naturally, to look for beauty in all its forms, and to Rafa Beneitez, my mentor, who passed on his appreciation for detail and for the process of making and unmaking, refining and starting again. He taught me that things rarely come together on the first attempt. And I’ve learnt something about myself along the way: I’m a very hands-on person. If I don’t experience something for myself, I don’t truly learn it.
When I was tasked with setting up the Purchasing Department, just as we were emerging from the pandemic, I had no team and nobody to show me the ropes. So I put together a schedule of up to ten visits a day and spent five weeks travelling across half of Spain, meeting suppliers and visiting hotels and residences. I spent three days in Yecla working on a sofa, until suppliers started talking about “some woman called Sara who’s been going around asking endless questions.” I quickly realised that creating something truly distinctive means going deeper: understanding how things are made, what resources are needed, thinking through every corner, right down to the very last screw.
Distinctiveness isn’t necessarily about creating something eye-catching or immediately visible. Sometimes, it’s about what you can’t see. At Kora Green City, when the project was almost finalised, we realised we were investing heavily in engineering solutions to compensate for shortcomings in the building itself. It was like trying to keep warm in a down jacket full of holes. So we decided to make the jacket without the holes, even if that meant turning the entire project upside down. Premium on the outside and from within. We’re not impressed by slogans. What matters to us is that a building performs efficiently, respects its surroundings and leaves a lasting impression on the guest experience.
We apply the same thinking to the people we work with. A single project can bring together twenty-five different perspectives: architects, interior designers, landscape architects, engineers, artists… Either we’re all pulling in the same direction, or we’re lost. That’s why we look for teams with a genuine sense of purpose, people who understand that collaboration involves compromise and that those compromises ultimately lead to better projects. People who keep their egos in check and bring an abundance of enthusiasm. What I enjoy most is when a project ends with everyone thanking one another, because those thanks reflect an exchange of ideas, shared learning and the achievement of a common goal.
There’s something else that drives me. A building can stand for many years, sometimes far too many. We’re not just building for the person who buys an apartment. We’re shaping small corners of a city. That sense of permanence demands care and rigour in every decision, because fleeting things are forgotten, but buildings remain.
I always tell new members of the team the same thing: there are no shortcuts here. It takes determination, focus and an eye for detail. Product design may account for just ten percent of the whole, but it’s that ten percent that sets us apart. Without it, we’d still exist, but we wouldn’t be who we are.
