Craig Jones just shared an early look at Zamaya, the beautiful training resort set to become B Team’s new home in Mexico’s Mayan jungle.
The project is the result of eight years of work by Dave Foran, an Irish former professional rugby player who set out to design the kind of training destination he wished had existed during his own travels:
I was just going doing training stuff all over the world, going to Thailand doing Muay Thai, going doing some jiu-jitsu stuff in Brazil, went to Cuba to do boxing camps…
Just everything I like doing was traveling, getting training.
Where’s the place for us lot that are just into our training, whatever kind of discipline it is?
That question led to a facility built across seven training areas.
Anchoring the complex is a bamboo-and-steel main pavilion Foran calls the “big monster” featuring a spiral staircase up to a jungle viewpoint and bridges connecting to a boxing and Muay Thai space with a ring, an octagon, and 16 heavy bags.
A separate building houses the jiu-jitsu studio on its top floor, with a 20×20 meter mat and views across the whole property.
Foran pushed the Bali-based architecture firm behind the design to go further than their usual work:
They thought they were going nuts trying to make something really out there…
Double it. Just double the craziness of it. I want to make like Willy Wonka’s fitness and training factory basically. And I think we got there.
Recovery gets its own dedicated space, with three always-running ice baths, a jacuzzi, sauna, nine massage rooms, and a sensory deprivation flotation chamber, alongside on-site nutritionists handling meal and macro planning for guests.
And, with 48 hotel rooms, 48 three-bedroom villas, a 90-seat restaurant, a 70-person seminar room, a calisthenics area led by a world champion, and a fully equipped main gym, Zamaya is built to house nearly 300 guests at capacity.