coastal · hospitality
The Soul Paje
- Location
- Paje, East Coast, Zanzibar
- Year
- 2021–ongoing
- Area
- Coastal cluster development
- Client
- The Soul Paje
- Services
- design · implementation · maintenance
- Status
- Mature, self-sustaining
A coastal cluster of densely spaced buildings on Zanzibar's east coast, reimagined as a lush, productive oasis where the narrow intervals between structures became thriving ecosystems.
Context
Paje sits on a stretch of east-coast Zanzibar where buildings are placed close enough that the spaces between them are usually written off as service corridors. We saw them as the most valuable square metres on the site - shaded, sheltered, intimate, perfect for planting.
Challenge
The client wanted privacy, microclimate regulation, and a resort-style sense of arrival, but without the irrigation budget or the visual sterility of conventional ornamental landscaping. The brief was as much about restraint as it was about planting.
Design strategy
- Multi-layered food forests. Native and adaptive species strategically planted to form natural privacy screens that also yield edible harvests.
- Climate-responsive selection. Resilient canopy trees and understorey plants chosen to cool walkways by 2–3°C without supplemental irrigation.
- Regenerative aesthetics. Landscape features built from 100% locally sourced materials, including an artisanal stone mountain feature crafted on site.
- Material innovation. Repurposed coral rag for drainage systems; site-excavated stone for landscape features; drought-resistant groundcovers across the site.
“The Soul Paje isn't just designed - it's cultivated. Every garden bed, every shade tree, is a quiet manifesto for living gently, regeneratively, and in rhythm with the coast.”
- The Soul Paje
Lessons from the land
Four years in, the landscape has matured into a self-sustaining edible ecosystem that requires minimal inputs, with naturally cooled pedestrian corridors and continuous on-site organic matter production through composting. Sustainability and luxury, we've learned, can occupy the same hectare.