RESORT DESIGN １

PROJECT TITLE
PROJECT REPORT ON

FUNZI BEACH RESORT SPA.

FOR PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF REQUIREMENT FOR THE COMPLETION OF
DIPLOMA IN ARCHITECTURE

NAME OF CANDIDATE

JOHNLEE MURIMI KINYUA

DARC/0103/2019

YEAR OF PUBLICATION

DATE: SEPTEMBER,2022

INSTITUTION OF AFFLIATION
TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MOMBASA
SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING
DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE
MAIN CAMPUS

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DECLARATION

I, JOHNLEE KINYUA MURIMI, hereby declare that this project report is my original work

and has not been submitted before for any academic award either in this or other institutions of

higher learning for academic publication or any other purpose. The references used here from

other journals or materials are indicated in the references section.

Name: JOHNLEE KINYUA MURIMI

Signature...................................... Date …………………………

Name: ………………………………..(SUPERVISOR)

Signature...................................... Date…………………………

Name:………………………………..(C.O.D)

Signature...................................... Date…………………………

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DEDICATION

This report is dedicated to my dissertation work to my family and many friends. A special feeling of
gratitude to my loving parents, Silvanus kinyua and Jane nyambura whose words of
encouragement and push for tenacity ring in my ears. My sisters Teresa, Celina and Samantha have
never left my side and are very special. I also dedicate this dissertation to my many friends who
have supported me throughout the process. I will always appreciate all they have done.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost, I have to thank my tutor Arch Kassim. Without whose assistance and dedicated
involvement in every step throughout the process, this report would have never been accomplished. I
would like to thank you very much for your support over the year you have been of help.

I would also like to show gratitude to Arch's. Alex Maninga, Kariuki, Kerongo, Kalandar and the
entire department of Architecture.AS Arch Kassim was part of my third year studio team at the
University. His teaching style and enthusiasm for good design made a strong impression on me and I
have always carried positive memories of his crits with me.

Much of the analysis presented is owed to my time in Diani. Bwana Ali Abdulla at the County Offices
kindly assisted me with the statistical analysis in this thesis and was very patient with my knowledge
gaps in the area. Getting through my report required more than academic support, and I have many,
many people to thank for listening to and, at times, having to tolerate me over the past three years.

I cannot begin to express my gratitude and appreciation for their friendship ,Ilka rotich,Chris obaga
and Daniel ndirangu have been unwavering in their personal and great support during the time I
spent at the University with them.

For many memorable evenings out and in, I must thank everyone above as well as Clement Miano
and Tony karani. I am indebted to many of my colleagues and friends for their support and feedback,
patience and of course friendship.

Most importantly, none of this could have happened without my family. To my parents Silvanus
Kinyua and Jane Nyambura and my siblings; Teresa,Samantha and Celine for
providing me with unfailing support and continuous encouragement throughout my years of study and
through the process of researching and writing this thesis. This accomplishment would not have been
possible without them.

And finally but not at all least, all the people that have gone unmentioned for all the support along the
way. It is a pleasure to thank those who made this thesis possible.
Thank you.

JOHNLEE KINYUA MURIMI.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF
STUDY..................................................................................................................8

1.11 INTRODUCTION
TO THE PROJECT………………………………………………………...8
1.12 WHAT IS A RESORT?…………………………………………………….9
1.13 OTHER PROJECT
SITED IN THE REGION………………………………………………….10
1.14 POSITION OF
COUNTY GOVERNMENT………………………………………………..10

1.2 PROBLEM
STATEMENT ...................................................................................................... 11
1.3 PROJECT
OBJECTIVES....................................................................................................... 12
1.4 RESEARCH
QUESTIONS................................................................................................…….13
1.5 JUSTIFICATION OF THE
STUDY...........................................................................................................…. 14
1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE
STUDY ...........................................................................................................… 14
Chapter 3: PROJECT BRIEF

3.1 CLIENT IDENTFICATION

Chapter 4:SITE SELECTION AND JUSTIFICATION

4.1 SITE DESCRIPTION

4.2 SITE LOCATION

Chapter 5:CASE STUDIES

5.1 INTERNATIONAL CASE STUDY

5.2 LOCAL CASE STUDY

Chapter 6: DESIGN CONCEPT

REFERENCES
APPENDICES
BIBLIOGRAPHY

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1.1 LIST OF FIGURES

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1.1 LIST OF TABLES

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1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY

Resort cities are urban areas where tourism or vacationing is the primary component
of the local culture and economy. Resort towns were created around the late 1800s
and early 1900s, in the United States with the development of early town-making.

Throughout many resort towns are elements of ambitious architecture and

romanticizing a location. Resort cities have a great impact on
their locales. These include the creation of new tourism circuits and attractions,
enhancement of the existing tourism circuits and the opening up of the marginalized
regions.

1.11 INRODUCTION TO THE PROJECT

This is a project proposal on designing the Funzi Beach Resort Spa, for the partial
fulfilment of Diploma in Architecture. This covers design problems related to
resort and tourist space, from program formulation, site selection, case studies,
literature reviews, research, and design. The project will try to incorporate all the
necessary facilities and amenities and will be the largest resort in the county.

Thus, spaces has to be planned so that it comply with the demand of both national
and international visitors and standards to meet their demands. This resort will
perform multifunction, as it will have restaurants, Conference halls, Lodging
suites, Individual Cottages, Heath Club, Curio Shop, Ethnographic Museum,
Small Library, performance space etc... Besides this, it will have services like
Parking, Receptions, Plazas, Tourist Information Centre, and recreational
spaces like Swimming Pool, Mini Golf Course, Lawn Tennis, Natural as well as
artificial landscapes and Space for Artists, Writers etc..
If we see the present scenario, we cannot find all these activities in single resort, thus,
it is important to know the management of all these activities and also i cannot take
this sort of resort more far form urban fringe as target group is urban dwellers too.
The resort will attempt to integrate the socio-cultural aspect of Kwale society with
contemporary spatial demand of resort and create harmony between them, together
harmonizing it with site, and surrounding to fit it in context.
One most important thing is that the resort will be focusing more on its services
which are provided through proper design of spaces and at the same time, it will
be concerning on the sustainability in architecture, of which the world is thirsty.
The tremendous rise of energy demand has created uncertain future seeking a new
form of design concept based on passive solar technologies and sustainability in
built form. Building sector contributes 30%-40% (7). of total global energy
consumption, which is increasing in rapid pace which need to be reduced and it is our
duty to create efficient design, though designing a virtual project.

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1.12 WHAT IS A RESORT?

Resort, Oxford’s dictionary defines resort as place that is frequented for holidays
or recreation or for a particular purpose. One can go and swim in resort, can have
lunch, can go just to pass time, plan an overnight stay and lit camp-fire, artist can
complete their portrait, novelist can finish novel, a poet can create his poem and
tourist can have charming stay there. A resort can function as a conference centre, as
a meeting centre, as a banquette, as a restaurant, as a health club and various
other functions. A resort could be day serving and night serving, and it provides the
cuisine service.

So, if we go through the structural formation of resort then there are two types of
resort;
• Self contained of integrated resort
A modern form of resort where one can have all the resort facilities within a
boundary. Eg Sarova White sands Beach Resort and Spa in Mombasa.
• Resort town:
It is often understood as a traditional form of resort but this type carries
essence of resort where functions and facilities are scattered in a small town,
which focuses on tourism as its primary occupation.Eg diani town in kwale
county.

This sort of resort shall,

• Provide one signature amenity or anchor attribute

• Provide five secondary recreation/leisure/entertainment experiences
• Provide one full-service food & beverage outlet
• Bed-base must include short-term or overnight lodging
• Minimum of 25 rooms or other accommodations (exception to minimum
for properties with two signature amenity/anchor attributes)
• Emphasize a leisure or retreat-environment experience

The definition of few terms states above,

Signature Amenities:
Signature amenities are amenities, attractions, and geographically significant
attributes that a resort requires to provide in order to be considered as a resort. These
include, for example: golf, ski/mountain, beach/ocean, lakeside, casino/gaming,
all-inclusiveness, spa/health/wellness, marina, tennis, and Water Park. For
property-generated or fabricated amenities, they need to be considered full-service to
be a signature amenity.

Anchor Attribute:
It is minimum number of amenities that a resort should provide in addition to lodging
and cuisine facility. The minimum number of amenity is five, below this number; it is
no more resort. Among various facilities like Health, Gymnasium, Sports, Library,
Museum, Swimming pool, Educational, Dude ranch, Casino, Discotheque etc.., it
should have minimum of five.

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1.13 OTHER PROJECT CITED IN THE REGION

The region has 22 tourist class hotels in the county with a bed capacity of 5098 and a
few resorts. The county has high potential for investment in the tourist hotel sector
particularly implementation of vision 2030 flagship project namely Diani Resort City
whose construction is on course. Examples of resorts include
Leopard Beach Resort and Spa
Swahili Beach Resort
Leisure Lodge Beach & Golf Resort Baobab Beach Resort and Spa

1.14 THE POSITION OF THE COUNTY

GOVERNMENT REGARDING THE PROJECT
INRODUCTION TO THE PROJECT
The county has high potential for investment in the tourist hotel sector particularly
implementation of vision 2030 flagship project namely Diani Resort City whose
construction is on course. This project shall lead to attracting high network tourist,
employment creation, Improved living standard, Infrastructure development,
Make Kwale county preferred destination in Africa and word resort cities, promote
other forms of tourism attraction like event tourism, sports tourism and conference
tourism.

1.15 THE POSITION OF THE NATIONAL

GOVERNMENT REGARDING THE PROJECT
INRODUCTION TO THE PROJECT

Developing required policies ,legislation and guideline with required coordination

with other stake holders to improve the tourism sector in the country and
incooporating finance to the tourism sector investment for the vision 2030.

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1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT

In 1975 the Kenya Coast Planners Limited (KCP) designed came up with the National
Development Plan (NDP) in which Diani town was planned as a tourist destination.
The master plan proposed the construction over 18 years a ‘model’ New Town for
30,000 Kenyans and 6,500 beds for holiday visitors. It had plans for extensive rural
development and conservation in Kwale District, together with the creation of
distinctive safari destinations within the broad project area and beyond into the
National park.

This master plan design however did not fully cater for the rapidly growing local
population in Diani. The enduring seasonality of parts of the tourism industry,
coupled with the relatively modest scale of many resort labour markets, generates
some important geographical links between these areas and what amount to traditional
source areas of seasonal labour supply.
The inadequacy of the planning of Diani as a resort city has led to the construction of
schools, health care centres and other social amenities on a need to basis as their
requirements came up.

These developments were not done by the government of Kenya, rather as charity
projects by tourists who become residents in Diani.
Successful resorts draw people in to spend a few days, a few weeks or longer.
Attributes of adequate resort design is a welcoming atmosphere, entertainment for its
guest, a place for escape, celebration and creation of memories.
This research therefore seeks to study the factors relevant to architecture in resort
planning and design for sustainable development and document tourist resort
destinations in Diani. It explores resort planning and design under sustainable
principles, design principles, utilities and services, transportation and landscape
design. It also looks at resort architecture from the point of view of form
and geometry, space making, décor, materials and waterfront design.

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1.3 PROJECT OBJECTIVE

The main objective of this proposal is to design Re-creative Tourist Beach Resort Spa
for the partial fulfilment of Diploma in architecture of Architecture. Specifically the
objectives are to,

• Provide a recreational environment for the resort through varieties of facilities and
functions.
• Provide hospitality for both domestic and foreigner tourists and promote tourism
ultimately Promote local as well as national economy through the promotion of
both internal and external tourism.
• The establishment of tourist resort will create the economic opportunities to site
neighbourhood. Also the local and national economy will boost due to
establishment of multifunctional recreational tourist resort.
• Create an interactive ground for locals and visitors so that there may be
interchange of ideas and cultural demonstration.
• Provide a space for official meetings and seminars in natural surroundings.
• Make analytical study of the functional requirements of resort and implement
efficient design to carry out the functions smoothly.
• Respond to climatic and energy consumption issues raised by present day
architecture through eco-sensitive design.

In addition, there are various objective related to achieving proper functioning built
forms, that can be achieved through literature reviews and research. Thus, the
objectives are to,
• Study about the materials and technology regarding the sustainability in design
• Study about energy efficient design
• Study about passive solar architecture
• Study about low cost sustainable building materials
• Study about spatial organization and areal need of resort programs

The ultimate objective is to attain unique resort design with all the knowledge and
skills that is learned throughout three years of learning. The final design should be
free from all the design problems and should be outstanding from all the prevalent
resort in Kwale County.

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1.4 RESEARCH
QUESTIONS

1. What are the factors

relevant to architecture in
resort planning and
design for sustainable
development?
2. What are the resort
typologies present along the
Diani Coast?
3. What recommendations can
be made for the appropriate
architecture and design of
resorts?

Fig. 1.3 A poster exploring the possible touristactivities in Diani

Source: www.magicalkenya.com, Retrieved 10/09/2022

1.5 PROJECT JUSTIFICATION

In present context, tourism in DIANI holds a great potential to establish itself as a
significant means of economy. This sector has a great potentiality to generate foreign
revenue, which can bring about immediate socio-economic benefit from small
investments.
A well-synchronized and planned resort, which caters the modern amenities as per the
requirement of the visitors, is a present need. We can find many resorts here and only
few of which are fulfilling these needs. In addition, most of the resorts are oriented to
limited service focusing only foreigners and paying very little attention to urban haves.
The multifunctional resorts are still absent in DIANI and this proposed resort will be
one of the iconic resort with all resort facilities which will ultimately promote resort
tourism.

The future is hard to predict but some things are certain. There will be rise in urban
population in developing economies and an increase in levels of income. This project
will pay its attention towards the global energy crisis and climate change though it is a
worthless effort to give impact in global scale, but it will certainly create an example
and impact locally as there is saying, think locally, impact globally. This proposed
resort could be the masterpiece of all resort that are functioning today and will
approach to give it global identification.

The most important part is socio-economic impact. The society has changed a lot
from traditional to modern and still in the stage of metamorphosis, from modern to

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post modern through global interchange has not kept KWALE county society
untouched. The economic influence of tourism in KWALE is noteworthy as is has
established itself as a prominent foreign exchange earner.Thus, tourism plays an
important to upgrade local as well as national economy so resort proposed is
commercially acceptable.

The creation of unique resort in a built form will be the landmark of valley and even
of KWALE so that, it becomes place to visit. Resort tourism is well flourished in
DIANI, and people go there just dwell around the resort area. Likewise, this proposed
resort will be leisure resort with recreational activities, which could provide space for
both internal and external tourist.

1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF
THE STUDY

The study will be

investigating the principles
applied for successful
architecture and design of
resort cities, It aims at
establishing appropriate
parameters to help draw
recommendations on for the
design of resorts. The lessons
learnt will provide
architectural guidance on
designing resorts that meet the
demands of the resort guests
aesthetically, are sustainably
designed and are functionally
efficient.

Fig. 1.4 An image of Coastal towns in Kenya with Diani,

the study area highlighted
Source: Google images Retrieved 10/09/2022

It is expected that the results of this study would be implemented in the planning and
design of resort cities for sustainable resort city development. This research is
aimed at contributing to the body of knowledge on resort architecture in resort
coastal regions and in particular, Diani in South Coast Kenya.

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