Crocodile Inn

The client's brief was to design a luxury hotel at Botswana's tourist hub - The Okavango Delta. The Project is located at the gateway to the Okavango Delta in a town called Maun, Botswana. The site fronts the Tlhamalakane which is part of the Delta. The Okavango Delta attracts tourists from all over the world. It is a home for various wildlife and breath-taking natural vegetation especially during the seasonal floods. The client intends this proposed hotel to be a home for tourists and also become a showpiece that embodies a touch of the local heritage. This sparked a design concept centred on wildlife, especially the wildlife that's specific to the Delta and the water habitat in particular.



The design concept takes a specific focus on the Crocodile as one of the prominent reptiles found in the area. The design concept of the hotel was therefore derived from a Crocodile. The building borrows the prominent features of the crocodile (scales) and translates them subtly into the building features. These scales are reflected as roofs and become the Building’s main feature. The roof feature is fragmented into individual elements that denote the crocodile scales at the same time maximizing on diffusing the north-east light into the hotel suites/bedrooms. The most public part of the building (Restaurant, Conference, reception) also assumes a futuristic appeal to it and one could liken this sculptural element as the 'crocodile head'. It is to be noted that these features were not interpreted literally but abstractly with snippets of the main features of the crocodile reflected. However, in totality it was ensured that the overall expression of the building gives the essence of the Crocodile as one of the prominent wildlife in the Delta.



The proposed name for the Hotel (Crocodile Inn) follows after the design concept. Once complete, the idea for this hotel is to be one of the distinct features of the Okavango area and market/promote Maun/Okavango Delta and Botswana Tourism to the world.