Estate Living Magazine #liveyourbestlife - Issue 46 December 2019 | Page 6

P R O P E R T Y
&
I N V E S T M E N T
NATURE
UNDERPINS
COMMUNITY
AT ELALENI COASTAL FOREST ESTATE
Landscape architecture blends seamlessly with nature to make this estate – built around the last swamp
forest on KwaZulu-Natal’s North Coast – a model for sustainability and community living.
You splash through a water feature when you enter Elaleni
Coastal Forest Estate, and you can’t help noticing the 12-metre-
diametre sculpture made of interlaced circles of aluminium-
magnesium alloy as you do. Known as ‘The Circles of Life’, the sculpture has been planted
with creepers that will soon develop a habitat of their own, and
features centrally mounted solar panels that help power the
estate’s eco-friendly street lighting.
Crossing the water feature, which feels a bit like driving on
an old-time causeway, ‘represents washing your worries away
as you approach your home,’ says Barry Lewin, marketing
manager of the estate. It was designed to evoke everything that Elaleni stands for:
not just taking from the environment, but giving back to it; the
circle of community that sustains us all; and the succession that
occurs in the forests as younger trees mature and grow.