Landscape Architecture at SCP Hilo hotel | Hawaiʻi

Landscape architecture shapes how a place is felt, remembered, and respected. At Soul Community Planet (SCP) in Hilo, landscape is not decorative. It is structural, cultural, and essential to the experience of Hawaiʻi. This reflection explores how thoughtful landscape design can support hospitality without compromising place, people, or meaning.

From the moment I checked in, I found my spot across from the wooden hand-shaped chair, basking in the sounds of the water garden, the choice inevitable. Never have I ever wanted to linger, to set up space, in a hotel’s lobby. But there I found myself, just me, the front desk man named Quinn, and the koi, each of us moving in our own rhythm throughout the setting.

This hotel presents itself as a wellness boutique hotel in Hilo, a phrase I approach carefully, as it too often signals performative over substance, and neither SCP Hilo Hotel nor I, are built for that. I do, however, find myself as an overstimulated, depleted mid-thirties kanaka woman seeking respite on one of the most healing places on Earth. Every detail of the decor has been meticulously thought out, from the outdoor furniture to the hotel lobby store, from the mason jars used as cups in the rooms to the purified water machine to the daily kombucha shots on tap. Soul Community Planet Hotels – Hilo Hotel (SCP Hilo Hotel) makes its mission quite apparent through the experience it provides its guests while staying in Hilo.

We came to Hilo to unplug for the week. As someone who is familiar with the town’s two known establishments, the Grand Naniloa and Hilo Hawaiian, SCP Hilo Hotel presented itself not only as a more accessible price point (over $100 less per day), but through its commitment to their “Every Stay Does Good” program, a fit for off-island locals seeking something more introspective and considered on an intimate scale. Hotels, especially chains, often share similar versions of “tropical” landscape architecture in Hawaiʻi through a tourist lens. At SCP, their tropical approach reads more measured from a Kānaka perspective.

At SCP Hilo Hotel, Hawaiian culture is not staged for consumption, but acknowledged through reciprocity. The hotel directs a portion of its economic gains toward one of eight nonprofit partners, embedding community and planet support into its business model. They set themselves apart from the cookie cutter mold of corporate conventions and stand firm in “wellness (Soul), sustainability (Planet), and kindness (Community)”.

As an owner of a Landscape Architecture firm in Hawaiʻi, I appreciate how flora is used as both structure and decoration. At SCP Hilo Hotel, plantings create pockets of refuge, nuanced with sophisticated practicality and elevated vignettes of a space familiar. The pool alone offers distinct experiences for the Floater, the Tanner, and the Lounger, each reinforcing SCP’s values of Soul, Planet, and Community. From the pool, views are framed by ferns and puka lava rock, reminiscent of the forests and back roads through Keaʻau and Pahoa. The Floater catches snippets of the fern canopy, accented by the tin roofs synonymous with Hilo’s reputation as a sleepy town.

The ground cover echoes lava field textures, complementing the gray of forever seeming overcast clouds betraying the UV radiation I know I will feel later, but also welcome as the Tanner. The middle-layer view of the Lounger offers a shaded reprieve from the sun, extending to the Buddhaʻs garden in the back, and continuing the feeling of peace and relaxation. From the Cattleya orchids and Hāpuʻu pulu (Hawaiian endemic tree fern) to the use of puka lava and red cinder rock hardscape, the designer of this garden should be recognized for their intentional handling of viewpoints, layers, and the discipline vital to manage vision and purpose.

SCP Hilo Hotel is a highlighted example of how landscape architecture, when done well, can be understood and replicated across residential and commercial landscapes. At SCP, landscape architecture serves as a connecting thread, shaping a singular pool experience specific to Hilo. You forget there is a major highway outside. You forget you’re in town.

I imagine my grandma staying at this upscale hotel with her sister, getting ready to leave in their muʻumuʻu, lei hulu pāpale, and lei momi, to go holoholo about the town. A scene that never took place, yet feels possible here. A tempo I know and miss; a quiet nostalgia. In contrast to the state I arrived in, I understand why the place feels the way it does, and how it offers the relief I came to the island seeking.

SCP Hilo Hotel does all aspects well, from circulation to moments of pause, from separation, to inwardness, through deliberate framing of views. This hotel demonstrates that landscape architecture in Hawaiʻi must be intentional and incorporated as an essential part of the hospitality program, not an afterthought. View layering, sequence, and pacing operate together across both macro and micro scales with space experienced over time in mind. Without landscape, the value of the rooms, the experience of Hilo, the soft barrier from the outside, and the sense of quiet elevation would be diminished.

If there were an award called The Landscape Architecture Standard for Hawaiian Hospitality, SCP Hilo Hotel would claim it. SCP sets the expectation for what Hawaiian tourism can be, and should be. When that standard is not met, Hawaiʻi and Kānaka risk dilution. From a Kānaka perspective on the tourism industry and the commercialization of culture, SCP’s mission shows that the kanaka, Hilo, and Hawaiʻi can be honored with wellness, sustainability, and kindness in proper context, without compromise.

At Soul Community Planet Hilo, landscape architecture does more than frame a view—it shapes how place is felt. SCP offers a model for Hawaiian hospitality programed in care, restraint, and intention.
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