Guest House, Muzanze, Rwanda
The Place – Muzanze is a highland town in Rwanda which is used as the base for guests visiting the rare and highly protected Gorilla families in the Volcano National park. Interestingly the site sits right in the middle of town, surrounded by houses and in formal dwellings which overlooked the site.
The Brief – We were asked to design the arrival into the existing hotel and then the pool, the landscape around the new pool area, and all of the connecting paths and vegetable garden. The site is so unique that we need to make the design so guests had a private experience despite the urban nature of the site.
The Design – Our main focus was to forest up the periphery to protected the site and then creating a lush garden. Along the boundary we planted a mix of fast growing indigenous trees to bring a small sense of the lush highland forests. We celebrated the use of the banana within the main planting design as these plants and fruit are so loved by all worldwide and are an important plant for the agricultural fabric and identity of Rwanda, and its culture and people.
As with all of our projects we explored at length the local materials available and developed ideas of how to use the local volcanic stone in unique and elegant ways. We are so pleased how the craftsmanship of the stone masons is visible in the end result which slight variations in the lines.
We had alot of fun designing this pool. The client wanted a naturally shaped pool which is something which is always hard to achieve since none of us can ‘copy’ nature. We investigated the negative spaces created by the pool and in the end based in on three main circular forms.
Unfortunately due to covid we have not been able to visit the site to see the planting once settled but are excited to see progress so far. We will include some low resolution pictures here for now to illustrate a little how things are growing.
