At Zululami Luxury Coastal Estate – recently recognised at the Scape Awards of Excellence 2025 for Landscape Architecture Project of the Year – landscape leads the conversation.
Designed by Bernice Rumble of Land Art Studio, the landscape is layered and intentionally restrained. Brick pathways curve through dense, textural planting, where indigenous species soften contemporary architecture and natural materials ground the built form in place. Light filters through coastal forest planting, shifting the mood from open green corridors to more intimate, enclosed moments.
Built around the land
Long before the architecture took shape, Zululami’s guiding principle was restoration over design imposition.
As Bernice explains, “The landscape vision prioritised restoration before development to allow the land’s natural systems to guide the structure and pace of the estate.” The result is an approach where form follows ecology, not the other way around, with patience playing a defining role in allowing the landscape to recover and evolve over time.
That sensitivity is particularly evident in the site’s transformation from sugarcane farmland. Years of agricultural use had left the land depleted, requiring a careful process of ecological repair before any meaningful planting could begin. “Years of farming practices and chemical use had stripped much of the land of its ecological value, meaning restoration had to start well before any visible development,” notes Bernice.
The groundwork was therefore entirely regenerative: invasive species were cleared; natural systems were rehabilitated; and soil health was rebuilt through mulching and regeneration techniques. Only once this recovery had taken hold could planting and design interventions follow, with development responding to the land rather than overriding it.
Today, that long-term approach is expressed in a connected ecological framework of wetlands, forest and open green space – including a 14-hectare valley at its centre – which now functions as the true structure of the estate.
A slower coastal rhythm
Here, landscape is deliberately understated. Shaded walkways, layered planting and earthy surfaces create a quiet continuity between home and habitat, shaping a coastal environment defined as much by ecology as by architecture.
Movement through the estate is unforced, unfolding gradually as spaces shift between openness and enclosure.
Bernice describes the intention as creating moments that encourage people to slow down, pause and reconnect with nature more intentionally. This is reflected in the estate’s boardwalks, viewing decks, bird hides and forest lookouts – spaces designed not simply for movement, but for pause, observation and discovery.
Details: www.zululamiestate.co.za; www.landartstudio.co.za
Text: Jennifer Campbell Photos: Thea Cogill
