Reinventing traditional safari-style architecture
SA Building Review|Volume 8 2020
The new Cheetah Plains game lodge in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve in the Kruger National Park in South Africa, reinvents traditional safari-style architecture to create an altogether new safari experience of nature from within.
Reinventing traditional safari-style architecture
Designed by ARRCC, the lodge combines state-of-the-art sustainable architecture with a pioneering afro-minimalist aesthetic. Cheetah Plains contrasts confident contemporary inorganic forms with the natural landscape, creating something beautiful in the unexpected creative contrast of seemingly opposing forces.

‘Our lifestyles are modern; nature is raw and primal. It is in that honest contrast that a beautiful tension exists,’ says ARRCC lead architect, Stefan Antoni. ‘The architecture exists to enhance the experience of the outdoors - not to mimic it, but to complement it so that guests may experience the bush more directly, more immediately.’

The Plains Houses

The lodge’s accommodation is split into three separate, private components referred to as the Plains Houses. These, in turn, are made up of clusters of free-standing buildings, rather than the typical lodge typology of a central communal space surrounded by bedroom suites.

Each Plains House has a private arrival courtyard with covered canopy, an expansive open-plan lounge, dining and bar space with adjoining airconditioned wine room and a private family and media room. These communal living spaces are each surrounded by four standalone bedroom suites, almost large enough to be considered mini-lodges in their own right. The bedrooms suites each have a generous open-plan lounge and bedroom space, plus guest toilet and a walk-in dressing room. The bathrooms open directly to the outdoors, offering an exhilarating open-air bathing experience.

The outdoor features woven into the spaces around each Plains House include a boma area, an expansive terrace and a heated pool. Sculptural raw, rusted steel pool pavilions, inspired by the canopy of the local Tamboti tree, filter dappled light through their cantilevered branches. Each house is also equipped with a commercial kitchen with a dedicated chef.

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Reinventing traditional safari-style architecture
SA Building Review

Reinventing traditional safari-style architecture

The new Cheetah Plains game lodge in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve in the Kruger National Park in South Africa, reinvents traditional safari-style architecture to create an altogether new safari experience of nature from within.

time-read
4 dak  |
Volume 8 2020
Westbury Transformation Development Centre
SA Building Review

Westbury Transformation Development Centre

Can social justice be found through friendly and inclusive design? We think so. The Westbury Transformation Development Centre (TDC) project grapples with the issue of spatial and social justice in a marginalised community.

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3 dak  |
Volume 8 2020
The 1054 – a pavilion to the street edge
SA Building Review

The 1054 – a pavilion to the street edge

The 1054, strategically named after the property’s ERF number, firmly places itself on Main Road, Walmer, as a pavilion to the street edge. Main Road has been established, as part of Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality’s Spatial Development Framework Plan, as a new business precinct within the bay and is expanding rapidly. Although business is growing along this main feeder route, many houses have merely been face-lifted with a false façade that has really watered down the potential for the strip.

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2 dak  |
Volume 8 2020
Rebuilding trust is key to turning around struggling construction industry, says Minister
SA Building Review

Rebuilding trust is key to turning around struggling construction industry, says Minister

A growing trust deficit between the government and the private sector threatens to derail efforts to turn around the struggling construction sector, but government is intensifying its efforts to build meaningful relationships with the industry. This is according to the Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure, Patricia de Lille, speaking at the 118th Annual General Meeting of the Master Builders and Allied Trades’ Association of the Western Cape (MBAWC).

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2 dak  |
Volume 8 2020
Giving more than it gets
SA Building Review

Giving more than it gets

To expand its physical footprint, MDA Attorneys acquired and rebuilt their office on a prominent site on the corner of West and Riviera in Houghton. Green principles were key from the outset; and yet the results, which include a Net Zero Carbon pilot certification, surpassed all expectations. Here’s how the process unfolded...

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3 dak  |
Volume 8 2020
Pickwick transitional housing
SA Building Review

Pickwick transitional housing

The City of Cape Town with its partners is steering a precinct-based approach to the delivery of affordable rental in the Woodstock and Salt River area close to the CBD. This involves multifaceted rental housing projects aimed at improving the lives of Cape Town’s disenfranchised residents.

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2 dak  |
Volume 8 2020
Exxaro head office showcases geotechnical expertise
SA Building Review

Exxaro head office showcases geotechnical expertise

Challenging dolomitic ground conditions at the site of the new Exxaro head offices for Growthpoint Properties in Centurion, Pretoria, resulted in infrastructure company AECOM collaborating closely with AMA Architects to optimise the building design.

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3 dak  |
Volume 8 2020