Sustainability is all the rage but really getting it right is much harder than it appears to be. It’s for this reason that Dalton Private Game Reserve in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands and Koop Design need to be applauded. They recently won the top award at the AfriSam-SAIA Awards for Sustainable Architecture.
The awards are an initiative aimed at recogninsing outstanding achievements in sustainable architecture. Koop Design focused on integration with the natural design of the 3000 hectare game farm. Koop designed all the infrastructural and residential buildings on the reserve and manifested Dalton’s environmental and social philosophy of a contemporary African aesthetic.
As part of the sustainability aims all the alien vegetation was removed from the reserves and a vegetable garden employing local villagers was started. As part of the Dalton Reserve, an initiative called the Dalton Education Trust was set up to restore and protect the indigenous vegetation and wildlife of the area, and initiate social and environmental programmes for the development of the local community to sustain and create a thriving environment.
