coastal · hospitality
Aqua Beach Resort
- Location
- Pwani Mchangani, North-east Zanzibar
- Year
- 2018
- Area
- Resort entrance and dune frontage
- Client
- Aqua Beach Resort
- Services
- design · implementation
- Status
- Complete (1-year build, our inaugural commission)
Our founding commission. A resort entrance on the north-east coast at Pwani Mchangani, designed to establish privacy, security, and immediate connection to Zanzibar's coastal beauty - and to set the studio's design philosophy in stone for everything that followed.
Context
Pwani Mchangani is open to prevailing kaskazi wind and reef-fronted beach. The brief asked for visual screening, fragrance, and a defended dune line - all without compromising the ocean view that the resort was built around.
Challenge
A first commission carries the weight of a manifesto. We needed to balance privacy, security, sensory pleasure, and ecological resilience in one project, on a coastal site that gives almost nothing for free.
Design strategy
- Privacy and security framework. Coral stone walls planted through with indigenous creepers for natural fortification; dense native hedges of Euphorbia tirucalli and Thespesia populnea for visual screening.
- Sensory landscape design. Fragrant coastal species - jasmine and frangipani - placed near pathways; textural foliage of sea grape and coconut palm for tactile interest; strategic vista openings that preserve the ocean view.
- Beach protection system. Deep-rooted Ipomoea pes-caprae across the foredune to stabilise sand movement, supported by organic-matter enrichment of the back-dune planting beds.
“Aqua Beach's landscape was our first love letter to Zanzibar - where security meets serenity, and every plant serves a purpose.”
- Permaculture Design Co.
Lessons from the land
Aqua Beach established the studio's commitment to site-appropriate solutions, our signature sensory design approach, and a "work with nature" philosophy that every commission since has been measured against.