Hotel Salina.

The site is a strip of land between a working salt pan and the lagoon. Flamingos feed in the shallows in winter; the salt is raked by hand every summer. Our first decision was that the hotel would not interrupt either.

Rooms are arranged in a single line along a raised dyke, each one turned slightly to frame its own piece of the flats.

A sixty-metre pool runs parallel to the salt pans, edged by a timber deck and finished in a pale stone-grey mosaic so that at dusk it becomes a mirror. Its far edge is level with the water beyond, so the two surfaces meet without a line.

We tuned the depth and the colour over a dozen test panels on site, looking for a surface that would hold the sky, not the tiles.

Each room is a simple cell of lime walls and pine ceilings, with a deep window seat facing the flats and a leather bench that catches the last sun. Furniture is low and built in; there is no television, and few guests ask for one.

Bathrooms open onto small walled gardens of samphire and sea lavender, watered by the hotel's own grey-water system.

Guests use the pool deck and the small spa set into the dyke, with its round bath and loungers along a lit stone wall, far more than the lounge we fought for. We have since turned the lounge into a library of birding guides and local cookbooks.

The salt workers still use the dyke path at dawn. The hotel opens its gate for them, and the first coffee of the day is theirs.