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SPACES
76 | LOWVELD LIVING
In the early 90s, the land that is now Makalali was bought by new owners who set about restoring the animal population and regenerating the bush to create a 26 000ha conservancy. Next came the creation of Makalali Bush Camp. Architect Silvio Rech’s designs were strikingly different for their day, in that he took his references from the immediate landscape in the use of natural materials, organic shapes and mud-plastered walls.
Unlike its peers, Rech’s Makalali did not have a ceramic roof tile, chintz bedspread or tartan carpet to show for itself. It was to signal the beginning of the end for the (by then rather weary) Eurocentric lodge design and décor of previous decades. In 1996, Tatler Travel named it Most Innovative Hotel Design of the Year. Rech’s reputation for designing “hand-crafted haute couture” in remote and beautiful sites all over the world has since put him at the forefront in his field. When Bernie Smith, British Army retired, (“Just in the infantry,” is all he will say on that particular topic), bought land in the conservancy, it made sense to emulate
