Preserving the identity of extraordinary places
Not a book about a place.
A book made from it.
THE IDEA
Some places are remembered for their beauty.
Others for their history.
The most extraordinary are remembered for something deeper —
a sense of place. A connection to landscape, culture, people and purpose.
Yet these stories often remain scattered across websites, brochures and digital platforms, experienced only in fragments.
Symbiosis Legacy was created to preserve them — as bespoke, collectible works that transform a destination's story into a lasting physical experience.
Each edition brings together a place's origins, culture, architecture, gastronomy, environmental initiatives, local communities and future vision within a single handcrafted object.
Made to be discovered. Shared. Remembered. Held.
THE MATERIALS
Before a single page is designed, we study what the place is made of.
Its walls. Its roof structures. Its stone, its timber, its metals, its fibers.
The textures a hand would notice walking through it — a joinery detail, a woven ceiling, a hand-troweled wall, a material found nowhere else at this latitude.
Every place has a material language of its own, built by the hands that shaped it long before we arrive with a camera.
Our work is to listen to that language — and ask how much of it can become part of the book itself, not as illustration, but as substance.
A cover that carries the same logic as the structure it represents.
A page that behaves the way a wall, a screen or a textile behaves.
An insert that speaks in the same visual language as the place's own architecture — its plans, its geometry, its proportions.
This exploration is never repeated from one edition to the next. There is no material library, no default palette, no formula applied twice.
The place decides what the book is made of.
Our task is to find out how.
THE EXPLORATION
Every Legacy Edition follows the same path — wherever it leads.
Depending on the place, this becomes a study of its origins, its architecture, its culture and craft, its landscape, its people, and the future it's building toward.
Local artists, architects and artisans are credited as contributors along the way — their work shapes the book, not simply illustrates it.
THE PROCESS
Research.
Every Legacy Edition begins with time spent inside the story. This includes recorded conversations and interviews with the founders, architects, artisans and visionaries behind the place — the people who can explain why it was built the way it was, and what they hope it becomes. Their voices, alongside the destination's history and culture, become part of the material we work with.
Depending on the place, this research may explore its origins and founding vision, its architecture and design, its culture and heritage, its nature and landscape, its gastronomy, its community and craftsmanship, its environmental stewardship, its hidden experiences, and the future it hopes to leave behind.
For destinations rooted in a specific tradition, this can also mean structuring the entire work around a local cosmology or philosophy of place, rather than a conventional table of contents.
Collaboration.
A Legacy Edition is never made in isolation. It becomes a point of encounter — architects, local artists, printmakers and artisans each contribute their own reading of the place, through photography, watercolor, sketch, or craft. Their work is not used as decoration. It is credited, and it shapes the book.
Design & Curation.
Photography, art direction, editorial design and material research come together into a single object. The words gathered through interviews find their place here too — quotes, reflections and stories woven between the images and the material studies, in the voice of the people who know the place best.
The Craft.
Every edition is bound, assembled and finished by hand. No templates. No stock content. No generic storytelling. Each one is developed exclusively for a single place — and exists, in this form, only once.
MORE THAN A BOOK
A Legacy Edition is not conceived as a traditional coffee table book.
It is a cultural artifact.
A collectible object.
A tangible expression of place.
An opportunity for guests to engage more deeply with a destination — to understand the values, stories and people behind it.
Something to be experienced, rather than simply read.
FOR HOTEL COLLECTIONS
Many extraordinary destinations are part of something larger.
A collection. A group of properties, each with its own character, spread across different landscapes.
A Legacy Edition can become more than the story of a single place.
It can be a beautifully crafted invitation — a way for a guest who falls in love with one destination to discover the others.
Not a brochure. Not a directory.
A collectible object that turns one stay into the beginning of a longer journey across the entire collection.
BEYOND THE HOTELS
The same principle extends beyond hospitality.
Architecture and design studios, artist ateliers, and creative practices with a story worth preserving can commission a Legacy Edition of their own — a body of work translated into a single, collectible object.
If your practice has shaped a place, a landscape or a way of living, we'd welcome the conversation.
ABOUT
Symbiosis Legacy was founded by Maximiliano Allendes.
Photographer. Artist. Creative Director.
After years documenting hospitality, architecture, culture and place, he became increasingly interested in how extraordinary destinations preserve and communicate their identity beyond digital media.
The name carries the idea itself.
Symbiosis, because every edition is built in collaboration — with the client, with local artists, architects and artisans, each contributing a piece of the story.
Legacy, because the result is not a marketing asset. It's something a guest can see, hold, and pass on.
Symbiosis Legacy emerged from that exploration — a new form of storytelling that combines photography, editorial design, craftsmanship and artistic direction to create collectible works designed to endure.
ONE DESTINATION. ONE STORY. ONE LEGACY.
Currently developing a limited number of Legacy Editions with selected hospitality brands and destinations across Australia and Asia.
Request a private presentation.
Curious about the photography behind Symbiosis Legacy?
Take a look at my full portfolio.