Patrick’s Lodge
-The site has a fantastic view towards Karamoja, across the valley and on view places towards the Sipi Falls
-The guest-rooms are planned and built on the right edge, looking toward the valley; the restaurant and pool are planned (not yet built) in the middle of the sloping plateau…
…and are smoothly sloping downhill…
…and are built out of beautiful stone
-Concerning the huge park between the guest-rooms and the edge of the plateau, containing the restaurant and a pool, is very little known
Thinking and advice
-Guest-rooms are built in beautiful stone in hundreds of greenish colours – this stone gives the resort a look of ‘terroir’, specific to that site and could be a USP – when showed not only from inside (with joints covered) – but mainly from outside as well – and kept somehow natural (and wild – as they are now, without filling the joints – the brick-part could be plastered, to get a contrast – the concrete pillars let rough
-On the park should be made reflections, what activities it shall contain (make possible): sitting, playground for children, fountains, huts for work or small conferences, birthday- or wedding-parties and
many others
-The park being hot in the day (or wet and muddy in the rainy season), could contain trees, or fruittrees (for guest to pick freely), banana-plantation-like, or light wood with beautiful twilight (and shelter)
-The site has a fantastic view towards Karamoja, across the valley and, on view places, towards the Sipi Falls – but the guest-rooms do not face it – they look into a park, what’s also nice – but the unique
of this exceptional site is not met
-The same can be said concerning the restaurant and the pool
-The pool could easily be moved towards the left side – as close as possible to the edge – so the swimmers could get glances of the famous Sipi-Falls, trip-advisors 1st choice in Mbale!
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Casa-Sipi Lodge
-The site has a fantastic view towards Karamoja, across the valley and, surely the best one, towards the Sipi Falls – even the waterfalling fancy noise is beautifully there
-The former and last British Governor’s house with its large terrace benefit of the most spectacular view to all points
-At other very impressing points of the site, well orientated to the Falls, can be found the kitchen, the reception with bar and the restaurant with many green and tree shaded terraces. A space for campers is there as well
-The guest-rooms, very ‘vernacular’ grass-covered round huts, uneasy to furnish, with tiny windows and bathrooms to go outside and somehow to look probably inside, with ventilation-pipes visible, are mainly situated on the back side of the compound, not orientated to the scenery – and you have to walk up the hill (a burden, without recompense)
-In middle of the compound can be found the laundry, very family-style – but may be for a 1-A guestplace not really the best – as well as the warm-water-heaters, working on wood (which are amazing to
discover – but somehow ‘difficult’, also ecologically)
-The access has to be found, it passes through neighbouring houses, which, may be, disorientate guests a little
-Those neighbours produce noise (music) what can disturb guest at the remote part of the compound at night
Thinking and advice
-Guest-rooms are built out of roughly cut wood, on one side little curved. Taken from the existing huts, those wood-planks could be reused for the new guest rooms (as well as the roof construction and the grass covering). This new rooms with bathroom inside and on each end a covered veranda could get a slightly more modern look and much more ‘windows’, while using those planks differently: fixing
them e.g. on steel-bars and make them in that way revolving
So, those ‘huts’ will have any time a different look (and need no glass – towards the view no one can pass and those ‘shutters’ could be left open during the night, in order to keep in touch with the falling
water…
-The guestrooms could be designed containing two 2x2m beds (if wanted), each in a separated niche
-On the park should be made reflections, what activities it shall contain (make possible): sitting, playground for children, fountains, huts for work or small conferences, birthday- or wedding-parties and
many others
-The park being hot in the day, could contain trees, or fruit-trees (for guest to pick freely), bananaplantation- like, or light wood with beautiful twilight (and measures against being muddy in rainy season, as well as providing shelter)
Propsal
MP-Sipi Lodge
-The site has a fantastic view towards Karamoja, across the valley and from some places towards the Sipi Falls.
-The site enjoys of a most lovely grove with old African trees, rocks overgrown with moss, nice little slopes towards a path along a brook leading into valley. This is in itself a USP!
-The restaurant has the best view to the Falls, the guest-rooms are located in the grove
-A neighbouring compound, up to the road, could be added in a later phase
Thinking and advice
-The site’s most lovely grove should be preserved!
-So, the proposal goes there to replace the existing buildings (guest-rooms and may be the restaurant) by somehow more modern ones:
Guest-rooms
Restaurant
