Faazenda A Santana Do Piaui
Boutique Hotel and Private Residential
Sustainability Strategy and Landscape Master Plan

Year:   2024

Location:  Cajueiro Da Praia, Piaui, Brazil

Service: Cultural-Ecological Landscape Studies

Project Team: Julia Watson, RADDAR

Client:  QNCO Design

Researching and analyzing how the indigenous communities of Faazenda A Santana Do Piaui work within the challenging landscape. 

Along the northern coast of Brazil where the indigenous Tremembe people once lived, the Rota das Emoções now connects the varied ecosystems of three states forming a glittering coastline perfect for ecotourism, adventure tourism and outdoor sports, like kitesurfing. Surrounded by a shallow, salty lagoon, the incredible site for the Faazenda A Santana Do Piaui boutique kitesurfing hotel and residential development, opportunistically inhabits an estuary landscape where the winds are high, the lands are dry, and freshwater is scarce. In this unique location visitors are surrounded by a thriving indigenous landscape displaying the arid beauty of the cerrado-caatinga ecosystems, akin to a wet savannah. In this challenging desert landscape, Julia Watson is offering a sustainable site planning approach framed by Lo—TEK through which to explore how communities have connected to the land, harvested water, cultivated foods, and sustainably inhabited this landscape for millennia. Accompanying the intercultural sustainability strategy in support of the architectural master plan, Julia Watson is the landscape team delivering the in-depth site analysis, landscape vision and master plan, the invasive species eradication strategy, the material palettes and and planting plans for the hotel centered around a Agro-Caatinga Botanica community hub and agroforestry center.