Mandarin Oriental, Bodrum is on a waterfront site, set on a series of levels in the resort’s hillside, surrounded by ancient olive groves and pine trees. The landscape vision was to create a seamless connection between the architecture and landscape that charts the romantic journey from Mediterranean pine forest and the garrigue shrubland, to olive groves and savannah. Roof gardens with shallow rooting native planting were established throughout the resort villas, helping not just to blend the resort visually into the hillside but also to increase energy efficiency by reducing summer heat impact and improve thermal insulation.The landscape practice set up an on-site nursery at the start of construction, allowing juvenile plants to acclimatise and benefit from two seasons of growth. A significant number of existing trees were retained and mature olive trees removed during construction were kept on site and reinstated. Soil from the site was stored and re-used.