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-Martin
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