#16 w-report Making a Move Ibiza & Goa

Diego Alonso and Alexeja Pozzoni of AD Studio share with us their secret retreats + some exciting News You Can Use to heat up your summer

Diego Alonso and Alexeja Pozzoni of AD Studio. Portrait by Beny Steiner

There are certain designers or architects that the Ws would happily follow from project to project. Take for example, Elora Hardy —whose bamboo treehouses and villas are found set amongst the most lush landscapes from Indonesia to Panama—and the Esteva family on Mallorca whose legacy Gisela has written about for T and Antje for Salon Magazine. Diego Alonso and Alexeja Pozzoni of AD Studio are a creative team—in work and love-who the Ws first met in Marrakech. They were living a small historic standalone house in Gueliz with peacocks while designing—with complete carte blanche— one of the city’s coolest projects of the last year: the Petanque Social Club, a restaurant and lounge with a vast courtyard garden. (Gisela also wrote about this groovy spot for T). Gisela sat down with Diego and Alexeja over a cup of chai to discuss their nomadic lives and a recent partial move to Goa, India.

Q: How and where did you two meet?

Diego: I am originally from Argentina but had spent more than a decade living and working in India. In 2006 I landed in Madrid and in 2010 I opened a gallery called Mondo. A few years later I was asked to help design and open a gallery in a new restaurant on Ibiza called The Elephant. The first minute I stepped on the island I asked myself: Why am I living in Madrid?

Alexeja: Until I was seven years old I spent eight months of the year on Ibiza with my family —the winter months we were in St. Moritz—and later, in my 20s, my mother moved here. By the summer of 2015, although I was also living on Bali, designing clothes, I was spending more time on Ibiza running a house that was something between a guesthouse and an artist residence. I was given a space in the Las Dos Lunas boutique—just 500 meters away from The Elephant—to open a pop up shop. The two of us met for the first time one night at dinner through friends and Diego was wearing a necklace with Rudraksha mala beads that I sold in my shop. It ended up he was selling the same necklace at his gallery at The Elephant. It was India that brought us together.

Q: What is about Ibiza that keeps you here?

D: So many creative people who are open to new ideas come through here. Sometimes too many people! (Laughs) That’s why we now have a smaller house without a guest room because for so many years we were hosting people all the time.

A: Instead we have a funky little caravan in our back yard and no one stays in it too long because it gets too hot. I love Ibiza because it reminds me of my childhood; the scent of the pine trees here are deeply embedded in my memories. Plus the mixture of people here are so unique; there are so many universes to explore. AND the swims in the sea here are spectacular.

D: We got our first interior project in early 2018 from someone we knew on the island : a beachfront property and residency on Formentara called Can 7. It was an impossible mission in a way because the place was a ruin and the owner didn’t like color and was very restricted in what he was allowed to construct, so at first we set up some Moroccan style tents. It wasn’t easy but we specialize in difficult-and special-projects and for us it was a beautiful love story to wake up and work every morning by the sea.

A: Every year we organize an art happening and residency in a different historic space on the island. This year we organized an exhibition of photographs of Ibiza from the 30s in one of the oldest properties on the island —it’s about 400 years old—which is now a small hotel called Can Quince.

Q: What attracted you both to India?

A: I have been fascinated by India since I was a teenager in Switzerland but I didn’t actually get there until the end of my 20s. I went for an Iyengar retreat with a yoga teacher of mine and I continue to go there every year. Last year we went on to visit a friend in Goa and even though I thought we weren’t really “Goa people” we felt really well there. We started asking around for long term rents and in just two days were offered a house near Talpona beach we had our eyes on. We returned this past October and started working on it.

D: We are already working on another house there as well, one that we will probably use for events and artist residencies. Both houses are inland—we like the beach but living in a small village in the interior still gives you a full jungle feeling - we feel secluded and surrounded by nature.

A: There are not very many Goans on the coast anymore — it’s mostly tourism businesses— but in the interior of the region the communities are still local, living in a more traditional way. While there is less development in the very south of Goa, suddenly now, because of its new international airport, the whole area is suddenly getting a lot of attention from Indian real estate companies. In general, there is a bit of a gold mine feeling there which is a bit worrying. This is similiar to what happened to Ibiza in the recent past, but by now Ibiza youngsters are coming back and realizing that they can have a much better quality of life on their island rather than in far away cities.

Q: What is it about these 60’s hippy trails destinations that is attracting a new wave of travelers and seekers?

A: I do feel these places have had a lot of experience with foreigners at an earlier time; they welcomed the “hippies” and co-living was possible despite the fact that so many different worlds collided. That was the magic that got created back then and what people today are looking for and still feeling. Ibiza, Goa, Bali: from hippy havens to Real Estate Paradises. (Laughs).

D: Somehow we are trying to swim against the stream to save the authenticity of these places, doing our best to preserve the good and authentic knowledge from locals and farmers that lived in the region for many generations and at the same time adjusting to the NOW.

A: When I came back to Ibiza in 2007 after having left in 1988, I had this feeling that "we" (the kids that grew up in the freedom seeker movement in the 60’s and 70’s) have to get back to these places and not try to recreate whats been done in the past - but find a new way.

NOTE: ALL ALEXEJA AND DIEGO’S SECRET TIPS —AS WELL AS NEWS YOU CAN USE—ARE FOR PAID SUBSCRIBERS. If you like our work please support us by signing up for a monthly subscription. Danke. Merci. Gracias. The Ws love you.