Chitabe Lodge


Set in the Okavango delta, four hours by vehicle from Maun, the main camp at Chitabe needed to be re-done. The project was a fantastic rebuild. The clients were delightful, the staff in the camp were superb, and the builders were quite remarkable. The project opened on time and on budget, a major achievement in the Delta.






Chitabe Lodge



Project Architect : MTA and Chris Bisset
Project Structural Engineer : Henry Fagan
Quantity Surveyors: Bernard James and Partners
Contractors: LBB
Client: Neil Lumsden and Helene Hamman
Electrical Engineer: John Wilkinson

Set in the Okavango delta, four hours by vehicle from Maun, the main camp at Chitabe needed to be re-done.  The project was a fantastic rebuild.
The clients were delightful, the staff in the camp were superb, and the builders were quite remarkable. The project opened on time and on budget, a major achievement in the Delta.

We focused on three aspects in the rebuild:

1. We had the area cloud surveyed and Henry Fagan designed custom pin footings (no concrete is allowed in the delta). The footings were also installed while the camp was still open to the public.
2. We used pre-manufactured steel components for all of the structure, trucking the components in to site and assembling in record time. These structures were then clothed in timber and canvas.
3. We recycled everything we could, including nearly a kilometre of Zimbabwe teak decking, carefully removed for re-use as ceilings and cladding.