Nyungwe Lodge, Rwanda

T&B was approached late one Friday afternoon by the Client, Dubai World Africa, to put together a cost estimate for the proposed lodge based on concept sketch plans, the catch was that they wanted the estimate by the Monday morning, like any self-respecting operation we complied and two weeks later we were constructing a complete ‘mock-up’ guest suite in our factory with another challenging T&B adventure in the making. 

The Client was in a hurry as work on other public buildings had already commenced on site so after another two weeks of modifications and approvals to the mock-up unit we commenced manufacturing of the buildings to be shipped to the site.

This was a high end, 5 start project, and the Architects were very specific about the detailing and finishing much of which was very new to us and most not previously done using timber as a construction medium so there was some concern from our side as to whether the requirements could be achieved. The required ‘look & feel’ was for a rustic yet contemporary exterior with a modern clean cut interior finish, contradictive terms to say the least but with some practical analysis of each detail and requirement we managed to successfully address each situation.

Some 470 tons of premanufactured and packaged product was shipped out of our factory in 20 containers over a five-month period along with a nearly 7000km grueling journey to the site via Port Elizabeth then transhipped in Durban to Dar es Salaam and then hauled via truck through Tanzania and into Rwanda and up to the site.

It goes without saying that the logistical costs of this process were very expensive and ultimately through pre-manufacturing as much as possible, very little waste material is shipped to the site, the Client achieved a massive cost saving in using the T&B premanufactured system.