Keep your head in the clouds with a luxury jungle experience

If the words 'ecology' and 'lodge' normally conjure images of rustic cabanas, hammocks and canteen-standard food, then Mashpi Lodge is set to explode the definition - at least for visitors to Ecuador's cloud forest.

Cuboid and aggressively urban in appearance, this 22-room luxury lodge is a modernist-inspired glass box perched on a cliff overlooking a swathe of tropical jungle northwest of Quito (the transfer is two to three hours). At the end of an unsealed road that passes through the remote rural villages of Pacto and Pactoloma, it opened in April after 20 months of careful design work and construction.

For architect Alfredo Ribadeneira, the guiding concept for the US$7.5 million project was to create a contained and protective 'cocoon' set amid dense tropical cloud forest. The challenge was to build in the middle of the forest far from any major centre without seriously affecting the environment. To this end, as much of the steel structure that could be pre-assembled was put together in Quito and then transported to the site. The location of the hotel is a narrow ledge on the spine of a hill, where the topography determined its overall form.

Throughout, floors paved with handsome grey porcelanato tiling, exposed tubing and staircases in a warm rust colour hint at a neo-industrial design. Huge panes of tempered glass in the restaurant and in guest rooms afford visitors a window to the cloud forest. Climb to the top of the observation tower a few hundred metres walk from the entrance and look down: Mashpi Lodge barely emerges from the canopy; all that striking design is subsumed by its surroundings.

If the design concept seems pared down, Diego Arteta, the hotel's interior designer, has not skimped on comfort or quality. The standard rooms are very smart, with king-sized beds with orthopaedic mattresses, and stylish wood furnishings and a bamboo-and-glass decor. All rooms feature Hansgrohe-designed showers, 600-thread cotton sheets, a pillow menu, rugs by Nani Marquina, plush armchairs, luxuriant fabric blinds, and designer desks and upright lamps. The wooden bed heads are lined with hidden LED lights that provide a tranquil, soothing ambience. The three suites are more spacious, featuring Philippe Starck baths.

Mashpi is a sister to Quito's super-lavish Casa Gangotena hotel. This relationship allows it to offer the kinds of cuisine and service you would normally expect only in city-centre four- and five-star properties. Chef David Barriga prepares Ecuadorian- and Peruvian-style ceviches, fabulous seafood tapas, and Ecuadorian dishes based on yucca, plantain and quinoa. He also makes sublime pastas and signature dishes such as red tuna in sal prieta crust (a mixture of roasted peanuts, salt and corn, ground and mixed in with various spices) with coconut and ginger sauce, and grilled striploin with sweet corn humitas (traditional Andean wraps).