HILTON GARDEN INN ESWATINI
HILTON GARDEN INN ESTWAINI
HOTEL
Completed in 2019, the Mbabane Hilton Garden Inn is an eight-storey hotel in the heart of the city’s rapidly developing CBD, its gently curving silhouette adding a new marker to the skyline. A glazed, street-facing podium engages Mhlambanyatsi Road, while the sculptural tower above echoes the surrounding hills and orients every room toward sweeping views of the Ezulwini Valley.
The programme follows a deliberate vertical separation that protects guest privacy. Transparent public zones—lobby, restaurant and conference suites—occupy the podium, stitching activity back into the urban fabric. Above, the iconic tower, with its swooping, undulating aluminium-and-glass façade, is architecturally differentiated from the base and dedicated solely to guestrooms and supporting hotel facilities, ensuring clear functional zoning and streamlined circulation.
The plan pivots subtly off-axis to optimise orientation; coupled with a compact central core, this gesture guarantees daylight and uninterrupted vistas to all 124 rooms while acoustically buffering them from street noise. The performance-rated curtain-wall skin tightens on sun-struck façades and relaxes on shaded flanks, creating a ripple-like texture that doubles as solar control. Deeply recessed podium glazing, framed by slender fins, lends the base a human scale and establishes a visual dialogue with the landscaped forecourt.
A planted rooftop terrace extends hospitality outdoors and mediates the transition to the surrounding hillside. Rain-water harvesting, high-efficiency HVAC and LED lighting temper operational demand, while locally sourced finishes reduce embodied carbon. Recognised at the 2019 SAPOA International Awards and the Africa Property Investment Awards, the project couples expressive form with disciplined, performance-led detailing to set a regional benchmark for context-responsive, mid-scale hospitality architecture.
Location: Mbabane, Eswatini
Size: 8,500 m²
Completion Year: 2018
Sector: Hospitality