Head off the beaten path with these unique desert escapes.
COMPLIED BY Gina Dionisio PHOTOS Dook (Hoanib Valley Camp and Shipwreck Lodge, Sossusvlei Desert Lodge, Tswalu Kalahari Reserve); Homestead Modern (Monument House); Elsa Young/Bureaux (The Nest); Supplied (Motse at Tswalu Kalahari Reserve)
From tented camps nestled in Namibia’s desolate Hoanib Valley to a colourful Modernist icon in Joshua Tree, these desert hideaways offer discerning travellers pure escapism. These local and international getaways from the VISI Archives highlight the enduring appeal of wandering off the beaten path.
Desert Whisper
The aliens, it seems, love Namibia. If you picked up a copy of our Feb/March issue, you would’ve read about Reverie – a desert pod in the Kalahari that’s straight out of Star Wars. But it seems that the space travellers from the Dune universe prefer Namibia’s western desert, because perched up on a rocky outcrop on the very edge of the Namib is another sci-fi -inspired pod. It’s called Desert Whisper, and given the topography of their home planet, it’s no surprise its occupants have chosen here to land their spacecraft. This is my preferred origin story.
Alain Noirfalise offers an alternative. As the operations director for the Gondwana Collection – Reverie and Desert Whisper’s owners – his backstory is more grounded in fact than cinematic fiction. “I never thought about it that way,” he says kindly, acknowledging the alien theory. “But now that you mention it, I see what you mean.”
Desert Whisper was actually built in 2018 on something of a whim. It perched on a remote ridge on a larger Gondwana Collection property of abandoned sheep farms that had been stitched together to form a substantial desert conservation area. After sitting down with Namibian architect Sven Staby over a few beers, a rough design was doodled on some paper napkins, before Sven’s team drew up the final designs.
Read the full story on Desert Whisper.
Reverie
Your first view of Reverie’s white domes emerging from the red Kalahari sands will almost certainly result in one of two impressions. You might get Sven Staby’s original vision. When the Namibian architect considered the Kalahari shapes, forms and elements that could inspire a structural design, on his list were termite hills, weavers’ nests, camelthorn trees… and ostrich eggs. Their hard protective shells inspired an organic structure with domed ceilings and interconnected interior spaces that honours the unique geography of this starkly beautiful environment.
That, or you’re going geek out on Star Wars. Because it really does look like Reverie could be the swankier property next door to Luke’s homestead on Tatooine. Suddenly, your Toyota Fortuner is a landspeeder hovering above the desert – and in front of you, a white wonder shimmers in the late-afternoon heat. You can practically hear the rumble of an approaching Jawa Sandcrawler and the thrum of Obi-Wan’s lightsabre.
Whichever option these images evoke for you, one thing is shared: the force is strong here. There’s a unique and powerful perception of being part of the desert when you’re at Reverie; an overwhelming sense of peace that’s as much about where you are as it is about the very special structure that Sven and the team at Gondwana Collection have designed and built.
Read the full story on Reverie.
Hoanib Valley Camp and Shipwreck Lodge
The drive will take us into the river bed, where we’ll hopefully see desert-adapted elephant, giraffe, oryx and perhaps some small antelope,” says our guide Mwezi Bupilo as he briefs us for an early-morning drive. He pauses before he continues, gesturing to the shale and granite mountains that surround us, glowing pink in the morning light. “But here in Namibia the landscape is also part of what we will see.”
He’s right. Whichever part of Namibia you visit, its arid terrain and endless horizons are a constant. Another is travelling great distances, and on our journey to Namibia’s North West we had a bird’s-eye view of its vast and varied topography from the small plane that collected us in Windhoek and deposited us in the heat of Sesfontein (with a middle-of-nowhere stop for fuel to remind us of just how remote we were). We marvelled at its desolate plains from the ground, too, as we bumped and rattled our way through the Kaokoveld Desert in an open-sided truck into the more verdant river bed that would lead us finally to Hoanib Valley Camp.
The day’s expedition aside, arriving here is quite something: Natural Selection’s tented camp in Sesfontein Community Conservancy is flanked by a remarkable metamorphic amphitheatre with sweeping views towards the ephemeral Hoanib River. You’re greeted by the warm smiles and joyous singing of the staff, a cool towel to wipe the dust from your eyes, an even colder welcome drink, and a desert vista that renders you mute with reverence.
Read the full story on the Hoanib Valley Camp and Shipwreck Lodge.
Monument House
Planted within a bouldered landscape, Monument House is a shape-driven abode that has garnered worldwide acclaim as a modernist architectural icon that follows in the footsteps of Frank Lloyd Wright’s nearby New City of Mentalphysics.
Recently renovated and designed by Josh Schweitzer in 1990 as a vacation escape for the architect’s close friends and family, Monument House consists of three separate structures, each in a different colour. The dusted blues, greens and reds adorning exteriors and continued in the minimalist, contemporary interiors reflect the colour palette of the unspoiled surrounds.
Read the full story on the Monument House.
The Nest
In the vast ancient desert of Namibia, nature is the greatest architect. Millions of years have refined the shapes of the shelters that birds and animals create for themselves here. The gigantic nests built by sociable weaver birds in camelthorn trees – vast domed structures of twigs and grass often 3m wide – are one of the most striking examples. “They’re architectural masterpieces,” says Swen Bachran, the entrepreneur and conservationist who established the Namib Tsaris Conservancy with his neighbours in the desert, not far from the famous red dunes at Sossusvlei and the haunting 700-year-old skeletons of dead camelthorn trees at Deadvlei.
Before he owned any land in the region, he and his designer and artist friend Porky Hefer visited a spot nearby the site of The Nest, as they dubbed this fantastical house modelled on these weavers’ nests, which they created over the next eight years. At that stage, Swen was still scouting around for a potential conservation project. “Porky came to the farm and we camped on this land together,” says Swen. They sat under the camelthorn trees and marvelled at the communal nests, their perfect efficiency suggesting countless lessons in biomimicry and possibilities for vernacular design.
Read the full story on The Nest.
Sossusvlei Desert Lodge
It takes a singular vision to renovate an existing property significantly yet sensitively – to make an original statement while retaining as much of the existing structure as possible.
To expand – yet maintain – the footprint while prioritising sustainability is especially challenging when the property happens to be located not just in Namibia’s remoteness, but in the world’s oldest desert. And when the brief is a total overhaul, as was the case with &Beyond’s Sossusvlei Desert Lodge – architecture, interiors and guest experience – it takes a team versed in the rigours of a certain type of multilayered hospitality that goes beyond quality linen. It requires a team that appreciates the tangible and intangible aspects of luxury; that knows how to offer guests an immersive experience.
After two decades at the helm of their award-winning multidisciplinary design agency Fox Browne Creative, Debra Fox and Chris Browne are specialists in this subtle alchemy. They collaborated with architect Jack Alexander, and worked with the existing buildings, constructed in the mid-1990s, to create something contemporary yet timeless and appropriate to the context.
Read the full story on the Sossusvlei Desert Lodge
Motse at Tswalu Kalahari Reserve
Nestled in a corner of the Korannaberg mountain range, Tswalu Kalahari Reserve offers just what the imagination conjures up when thinking “Kalahari”. Tswalu means “new beginning” in Tswana and South African-Namibian architecture firm Savile Row took this very much into account when presented with the project of revitalising Motse, a “village” of nine private houses in the reserve.
“The project upgrade client brief went something like this: ‘Returning regular guests must immediately notice the upgrade in comfort, luxury, intimacy and attention to detail, but it should all still feel comfortingly familiar’,” says Adrian Davidson, director at Savile Row.
In order to avoid compromising on luxury while maintaining a strictly eco-conscious stance, Savile Row’s main focus was to create a symbiotic flow between the lodge and the landscape beyond, making a seamless transition between the two spaces. The result is that guests never feel a divide between themselves and nature. “Our intention was to emulate the ecology of [the area], resulting in an approach that sees the small and rare being as beautiful and valuable as the vast and awe-inspiring,” Davidson says. “As much emphasis was placed on small details as on the architecture, and many of the furniture pieces are one-off pieces designed by our studio.”
Read the full story on Motse at Tswalu Kalahari Reserve.
Tarkuni at Tswalu Kalahari Reserve
Remote, exclusive and eco-conscious – and complete with tawny desert sunsets – Tswalu Kalahari embodies all the elements of a memorable safari experience. The Oppenheimer family, committed conservationists and custodians of this tract of stark beauty for more than two decades, are driven by their intent “to leave our world better than we found it”. And they are succeeding.
Two camps – Motse and the private villa Tarkuni – shimmer graciously in the sun. We featured Motse in VISI #106; now we focus on Tarkuni, and the camps’ acclaimed Klein JAN restaurant. As with Motse, an artful revamp by multidisciplinary design practice Savile Row has given the spaces a fresh, contemporary feel that doesn’t compete with the dramatic landscape that unfurls around them.
As project architect and director Adrian Davidson explains, one of the key reasons for the renovation was to invite more light into the Tarkuni homestead, and to create a more connected flow between the indoor and outdoor living spaces.“We drew inspiration from the surrounding fauna, using a palette of earthy tones and dusty botanical greens for muted, cool, simple interiors,” he says. “There’s nothing fussy or layered in our approach – we wanted the extraordinary vistas to be the hero of the site.”
Read the full story on Tarkuni at Tswalu Kalahari Reserve.
Nooishof
We humans are just enzymes,” says Marc Pampe, contemplating the scene below us in the softening light. “We can speed things up or slow things down, but nature is ultimately in charge.” We are seated on smooth boulders warmed by the sun, our ice-cold G&Ts fragranced with fresh mint picked from Nooishof’s garden.The plains are washed in pink and gold, tufts of grass pixellating into a vast pelt edged with a thin brushstroke of lime – the diminishing remains of some localised rainfall. Nameless mountains rise like rock-encrusted inselbergs ,vertically striated with black rocks that look like split seams. It is a scene of ancient grandeur, sculpted by millennia.
Southern Namibia is a place of awe, seemingly almost devoid of life. With an annual rainfall as low as 50mm, survival in the 25 000-hectare Sinclair Nature Reserve, located south of the Namib-Naukluft National Park, is testament to Darwinian lore. On a nature drive, we pass the occasional gnarled tree; warthog, tails aloft; a herd of oryx, startled into a gallop, raising clouds of pink dust in their wake. This only serves to highlight the luxury of returning to a glowing oasis, surrounded by cypresses and palms, where the aroma of Mariza Pampe’s roasting Muscovy duck, reared on the farm, greets us. This is Nooishof, so much more than a hospitality project, created by the Pampes with interior designer Heidrun Diekmann.
Read the full story on Nooishof.
Don’t forget to sign up to our weekly newsletter for the latest architecture and design news.
