NEW TERRITORY

Tembo Tembo a remarkably innovative bush lodge designed by Paris based Studio Asaï, proposes a sustainable and sophisticated approach to the essence of living with the land

- LIZ MORRIS

Along the banks of the Sabie River lies a lodge so architecturally unique that it takes the harrumphing of elephants and scuttling warthog close-by to serve as a reminder that this is primal Kruger wilderness and nothing tamer. Tembo Tembo is the holiday home of an American family, with four children and four grandchildren, who spends a lot of time in South Africa and has a true passion for safari and the veld.

The home was designed by Antoine Simonin of Studio Asaï, a Paris-based architecture and design studio whose distinctive style has been featured in numerous issues of Architectural Digest. About the brief, Antoine notes that 'they wanted the least visible house ever, that was very safe but also fully integrated with its wild surroundings.' This was his cue to look beyond the usual lodge vernacular of brick structures with 45-degree thatched roofs, which produces tall, visible buildings, and instead, he aimed to conceptualise a design that was ultimately, unusually, characterised by rammed earth walls and a flat roof.