When I first walked on the Mbano forest site in May 2016, there was just a dusty road and acres of forest stretching into the Zambezi National Park. The area had been designated a decade earlier for additional hotel and lodge development, but no development had been undertaken yet.
Over time, the site pegs sunk into the soft Zambezi sands. We could only locate one peg near the dusty road in 2016! I therefore arranged for a team of young men from town to locate the site pegs. The team were also briefed to create a three metre wide fireguard around the perimeter, so that we could walk through the hotel site with ease. I first learnt about fireguards at high school.
The convent high school in Chishawasha (outside Harare) that I attended was located in a hilly region, and as students we assisted with clearing the fireguard! Not an enjoyable experience then, but this knowledge on building fireguards came in handy for the Mbano project decades later!
What was striking from day one in 2016 were the large teak trees spread across the undeveloped forest site. As the hotel development planning kicked off in 2017, with architect Bruce Rowlands and his team, one of the first tasks was to commission a topographical survey. The survey identified over 80 large trees of a certain size across the site. The tree survey report assisted the architect in identifying the area with the least trees, and that is how we determined where to place the back of house.
There were also three large trees that formed a triangle – and the hotel reception, lounge and restaurant were built around these trees. Save for two trees taken down during construction, the same large trees are still standing today, providing shade for the hotel guests.
Written by Dr Mati Nyazema – Founder & Owner for Mbano Manor Hotel