About
Nestled in Playa Grande, Studio Alto is Home for Creatives & Natural Intelligence.
This is an invitation to regenerate our relationship with ourselves, with others and with our environment.
Mission
Transform our role into that of deliberate caretakers, designing a healthy, symbiotic future guided by Nature's wisdom.
Our Story
After decades of working in a fast-paced creative factory, producing art and commerce, the need to slow down became real. Costa Rica called. Covid hit. Studio Alto emerged.
We asked ourselves - Who cares for the artists? Who cares for the creators, the makers, the researchers — the ones who design and make the world of tomorrow? Are they just becoming commodities?
We wanted our land to be a home for all species. A destination to reconnect creativity with nature, technology with land, and the future with the wisdom of the past.
Nathalie Yaba Salazar
Artistic Director, Spatial Designer, Regenerative Futurist.
Born in the Ivory Coast, raised in France, at home in Costa Rica.
After years working in large-scale cultural production, experiential design, and international creative projects, she studied permaculture and founded Studio Alto as a response to a worldwide sense of disconnection. Nathalie brought system-thinking, regenerative design, and nature intelligence into her practice to create an inclusive ecosystem where all are welcome.
Studio Alto is both a home and a living lab. It is an evolving research project, a space of belonging , where she wants new and diverse communities to come together — with themselves, with the land, and with others.
Notes Left Behind
“We feel extremely comfortable and shed a few tears of joy this morning. It is so beautiful and so soothing, and we are infinitely happy and grateful to you from the bottom of our hearts.”
— Former Guest
“The sense of ‘time-freedom’ I experienced there. The little pool felt like a well of magic potion. Seemed like conversation flowed effortlessly. I felt more creatively motivated to work or develop my ideas. It felt unrushed yet more productive than usual.”
— Dré Labre, Artist, Director of Future Creative
“Absolutely a wonderful and unique place. A perfect way to integrate with the natural surroundings off the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica.”
— Former Guest