Elora Hardy’s IBUKU: Bamboo Houses and Sharma Springs in Bali

Elora Hardy's company IBUKU builds houses, schools and hotels in Bali almost entirely from bamboo, and the results look like nothing else in architecture: spiralling roofs, curved floors and rooms that open straight into the jungle. Its best-known home, Sharma Springs at Green Village, rises six storeys above the Ayung River valley and is described as the tallest bamboo structure in Bali.

Elora Hardy: from New York fashion to Balinese bamboo

Hardy, the founder and director of IBUKU, grew up in Bali. She spent 14 years in the United States, earned a fine arts degree and worked in New York designing prints for Donna Karan. In 2010 she left fashion and returned to Bali to continue the design-build work on the Green School, founded by her father, John Hardy.

IBUKU's design-build team created the Green School, and it remains one of the company's key projects. Today IBUKU employs about 25 design professionals working in architecture, master planning, interiors, furniture, model making, bamboo engineering and materials research. Head of architecture Defit Wijaya has been with the team since 2008. According to IBUKU's own profile, the company has built more than 60 bamboo structures in Bali, elsewhere in Indonesia and the surrounding region.

Sharma Springs: a six-storey bamboo house at Green Village

Green Village is a community of bamboo homes in Sibang Gede, in the Abiansemal district of Badung regency, overlooking the Ayung River. Sharma Springs, completed in July 2013, is its showpiece. The architecture and custom furniture are by IBUKU, the interiors by Yajaira Smyth and Elora Hardy, and the bamboo sourcing and construction by PT Bamboo Pure.

The arrival is the most memorable part. Instead of a front door at ground level, a 15-metre tubular bamboo bridge carries you straight into the fourth floor of the main house. A fifth-floor office sits above it. The Green Village property page lists several en-suite bedrooms, a guest house, a private pool and plunge pool, and a riverside yoga pavilion.

Why bamboo: a fast-growing building material

Bamboo regrows quickly: IBUKU's material notes give a growth cycle of three to four years before it can be harvested. That speed is central to the company's case for it as a sustainable building material, and its design process starts from local material availability, workmanship and building techniques.

Raw bamboo is vulnerable to insects, so IBUKU treats its poles ecologically before use and has them tested for durability. The houses also rely on foundations, services and other materials where bamboo is unsuitable. What makes the buildings special is the craft: poles are selected and joined by hand, so that each column, rail and roof rib keeps its natural variation.

Staying in an IBUKU bamboo house

Several of the projects take guests. Sharma Springs is offered as a short-term rental through Green Village, and IBUKU also lists the Bambu Indah hotel among its key works. Green Village is a residential community, so arrange tours or stays through the property in advance.

For more ideas in Bali, compare the the Ubud Village Resort. For a very different approach to sustainable living, see WaterNest’s floating-home proposal.

Related reading

• Herman Damar’s Indonesian Village Photographs: Light, Play and Everyday Scenes
• The Ubud Village Resort & Spa: Choosing the Right Ubud Property
• Kawah Ijen’s Blue Fire: Sulfur, Photography and the Crater Landscape

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