ReardonSmith Partners With Savile Row For New Resort Community İn Mozambique

ReardonSmith have announced a collaboration with Savile Row, the South African architectural and design firm. The two practices are already working on a spectacular opportunity in Mozambique. The project is the masterplanning and design of an entirely new resort community spanning 800 hectares of land and 1.6 kilometres of sandy beach along the Indian Ocean.

The site of the Mozambique project is located on a peninsula. The terrain is diverse in vegetation, rich in natural beauty and suggests abundant opportunity to create a resort that will provide a wide range of experiences for national and international visitors. An elephant reserve borders one side, the ocean another, there are lush coastal dune forests, lakes and savanna grasslands. The architectural response to this canvas is to be that of minimal intrusion, rehabilitating the landscape and providing opportunity to benefit the local population. When completed, the resort is likely to include a range of high quality accommodation together with varied leisure and conference facilities. Reflecting the sustainability criteria of the team, a large proportion of the site will be given over to providing a habitat for wildlife and indigenous flora and fauna, and an agricultural zone will provide home-grown foodstuffs.

Both Savile Row and ReardonSmith are confident that their alliance represents a unique combination of skills, experience and resources for the African region. Adrian Davidson, one of the founders of Savile Row, explains: “We are, and intend to remain, a niche practice working on bespoke projects across all sectors in Africa. ReardonSmith, by contrast, has specialised exclusively in hotel and resort architecture around the world for over 20 years, so has a huge body of experience in this field as well as all the design and technical resources of a comparatively large London studio. However, we are the same in our shared ethos of quality and in our absolute commitment to creating spaces that improve the human experience.”

This is the first time that London-based ReardonSmith has opened a branch office despite working on a wide diversity of hospitality projects across Europe, Africa, the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean. For Kirsten Goosen, the company’s Development Director - Africa, it was the desire to return to her native South Africa after a decade working with ReardonSmith in the UK, together with her belief that many parts of the continent are now on the cusp of significant expansion in business and tourism travel, that inspired her to take a lead in establishing the Cape Town branch office. “Everyone has been very welcoming, but we are under no illusion that ReardonSmith will have to work hard and prove itself in Africa,” she says. “By collaborating with such a talented and well-respected practice as Savile Row, we hope to be able to make an early contribution to the design and development of hotels and resorts, particularly where markets are opening up, such as in the sub-Saharan countries.”