This entire project is about that – it’s a statement, solar power, it’s own groundwater well, productive gardens and agro-forrestry to produce as much food as much as possible, and most material of house and décor has been reclaimed, its almost impossible to conceive of a better project than this in terms of sustainable credentials. The casa’s nursery is reviving some plant varieties once thought extinct and documented by biologists as existing still on the wild forests on the UXUA Roça (farm) property. Even the team of builders and craftsman are hand-selected, long-time collaborators from local families who we know are invested in passing artisanal knowledge and traditions from one generation to the next. This particular team we have kept largely intact and working constantly for the past seven years.
One expression which has really taken and stuck with me is that with Casa Azul we’ve ‘taken a casa from where no-one wants to be and brought it to a place where everyone wants to be’. And I also love the idea of taking ‘working houses’ (these were working farms) and turning them into real ‘leisure casas’, simple palaces of relaxation, but in a way they are still working homes, the industry now is tourism and not agriculture (well - we introduce a bit of agriculture).
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There’s a 2 km walking trail around the entire property made to highlight the biggest and rarest trees, as well as orchids, palm and fruit trees, which are marked.
There are 96 tree varieties on the property, and they’re all marked with their names and plant families, done with a botanist from the University of Ilheus here in Bahia. It was discovered that the majority of trees are almescar, with two varieties, and almescar is the historic ingredient (its tree resin) used in UXUA Vida Spa’s massage oil, incense and as a natural insect repellent
Uxua Maré is a 6 hectares (15 acres) property featuring two principle biomes, mata Atlântica (Atlantic rainforest) and restinga (sub-tropical broadleaf forest) with 175 meters of beachfront on Itapororoca beach, one of the most beautiful and protected areas of Trancoso in the far south of Bahia, isolated and totally tranquil yet walkable from the 500-year-old colonial town center, with transparent water and coral reefs which at low tide create beautiful pools of tropical fish which are a magnet for local spearfishermen who walk here to this spot each morning for as long as anyone can remember (Trancoso is a historic fishing village which once featured a Jesuit missionary and school and now still hold Brazil’s 2nd oldest church). Among the wildlife here are sagui and guigo monkeys, sloths, green Brazilian parrots and countless bird varieties including fishing eagles and owls, teju lizards, giant porcupines, and butterflies in infinite varieties; the beachfront with it’s shallow pools created by the coral reefs hosts abundant sea urchins, octopus, lobster, and of course colorful tropical fish. Sea turtles also appear from time to time. This is a favorite spot for the few remaining traditional fishermen who go out alone in small boats. Its also an area where in the 1970’s as hippies came to discover Trancoso because a spot for naturalists, nudists, and it was said to surprise many that traditional fishermen and hippie nudists co-inhabited the area with absolutely no social friction. This is Bahia!
The project mission is to create a small series of 3 unique houses named by color with minimal impact on the sanctuary of nature, and evolving over a short-time into an almost self-sufficient community by introducing to the existing flora additional fruit trees as well as vegetables and edible wild plants to go with other foraging riches, and introducing also a collection of rare palm trees carefully planted in the few areas that had previously been deforested.