Mombasa, Kenya
2015
English Point Marina is a contemporary residential and hotel development at the Kenyan Coast, located across the creek from the historic Fort Jesus and spectacular skyline of Mombasa Old Town on a 4-acre beach front site. It offers apartment living with the comfort, luxury and security of a hotel and will be managed by the award-winning team of the Pinewood Village Beach Resorts.
This development was conceptualized by Broadway Malyan, a UK-based architectural firm with PLANNING being brought on board to flesh out the design, do detailed design drawings and supervise the construction. On-site facilities include a hotel, restaurant, spa & gym, serviced marina, water-sport centre, boardwalk with retail outlets. The underground car parking stretches across the site, beneath and between the buildings. The residential component has four apartment blocks, each housing twelve 3-bedroom apartments, two penthouse apartments and one basement apartment, all on five floors. The blocks are interlinked by what are known as lush-links, green spaces developed as roof-top gardens atop the exposed bits of the basement parking roof slab. The hotel block features 23 fully air-conditioned rooms with 3 suites and conference facilities.
Kikambala, Kenya
Under Construction
Sultan Palace Beach Retreat consists of a mix of holiday homes, a Residents' Club and 4-star hotel, to be built over two phases. Phase I, currently under construction, consists of 16 villas, 50 townhouses, 144 apartments and the Club.
PLANNING was commissioned in 2012 to:
• Develop the design based on a concept by other Architect, to fit local requirements of code, spatial provisions and materiality.
• Further develop the Contemporary Swahili aesthetic.
• Make use of existing quarries on site.
• Oversee construction works.
Units are organized into seven clusters, bound by access roads and each with a focal point- the Indian Ocean, green spaces, swimming pools and a water park. A combination of Swahili and Modern Architecture are used in the design.
Swahili-style joinery and coral facing have successfully been combined with clean modern lines of aluminum and tinted glass.
Extensive use of local materials is being used, such as coral stone cladding, 'mazeras' stone and quarry tiles for flooring, local hardwoods for joinery and locally manufactured clay roofing tiles.
90% indigenous plants, and a tree nursery are established on site to ensure cost savings and to acclimatize plants to site conditions. Existing quarries reclaimed to create a water park, water reservoirs and house the Reverse Osmosis and Bio-digester plants. Recycled water from the Biodigester for irrigation, with that from the R.O plant as potable. Wells have been sunk to boost supply.
Coral/concrete building envelope reduces heat gain due to high thermal mass, together with tinted glass and use of small openings on western facades. An insulating layer of hollow pots has been incorporated on roof slabs.
90% of the labor is derived from the neighborhood, and the developer is constructing a community school.
Kikambala, Kenya
Under Construction
PLANNING’s design, comprising of seven towers within a 17-acre landscaped park, will feature the tallest residential tower, at 25 storeys, along the Eastern African coastline, (all the way from Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt to Durban in South Africa). Located on the beach-front along Kenya’s Coast and 20kms from the city of Mombasa, an existing resort and business centre is being transformed into a high-density, luxury, residential and retail mix-use development. Once complete, this will offer a community-oriented lifestyle where one can live, work and play.
The carefully arranged towers ensures ocean views and natural cross ventilation to every apartment, while allowing the sea breeze to penetrate the site, as opposed to the existing clustered arrangement. The development will house two commercial towers providing over 200,000 square feet of lettable space and five residential towers accommodating 325 apartments- each with unhindered views to the ocean. The modular design adopted provides structural and mechanical efficiency and enables efficient circulation of both people and vehicles.
A bold approach is being taken on sustainability- both environmental and economic- with water conservation (through rain-water harvesting treating and recycling), energy efficiency (through passive cooling and ventilation design systems) and climate-specific design (through use of solar-reflective and rust-resistant materials for the building fabric). This will bring general running and maintenance costs down considerably.
Nairobi, Kenya
1982
This unique residential development set in a fully landscaped, well-maintained, secure and competently engineered estate, with carefully considered land use has become a milestone in excellence in residential development in Nairobi. The lake has become a major landmark in Nairobi, and the entire area around Lakeview Estate has collectively come to be known as Lakeview.
Emanating from an architectural competition in the late 1970’s, this winning design set to develop 60 acres of abandoned coffee plantation with three low-lying swampy areas into a residential community. PLANNING recognized the unique opportunity available for creation of a lake in a large vlei in the centre of the site, and with this the financial advantages of not bringing in vast quantities of earth to fill it as was proposed by other architects. The outline designs from PLANNING for 88, 4-bedroomed, 2 ½ bath roomed houses on 60 acres were regarded as “unused” and there were initial doubts about sales.
The lake was designed to be self-cleansing with carefully selected water-purifying plants and fish that would control mosquito larvae, frogs and algae. Many exceptionally mature trees would be protected. A botanical study of the site identified 2 ground creepers new to the Herbarium and 6 species of eucalyptus trees not known of elsewhere in East Africa. The materials and design of the typical house type came from an intense study by PLANNING of the most cost-effective yet sustainable materials to use. The combination of “dry stone” for the external walls, brick, cedar wood block floors and timber columns, beams and sloped wood strip finishes under clay tile roofs (no ceilings) gave these houses a unique appeal, and they sold fast.
Nairobi, Kenya
1993
A Lion of Kenya project. The restoration improvement and extension of 19 Town Houses on Riverside Drive Nairobi, complete with standby power and water, swimming pool and landscaped gardens. NATIONAL AWARD WINNER.
