HOUSE OF BALI

The real estate owner Nail Power who hails from south Bali shared his experience on how he was stuck in the country due to the travel restrictions and this made his plan on how to make precious use of his time in Bali to find the rare pearl villa.

Naturally, this is not the norm for me to focus on the stylish villa in Bali for my clients, there are few building restrictions and the onus is on clients and architects to try to do the "right thing". Bali laments the over-crowding and the lack of infrastructure planning, as well as the difficulty of acquiring electricity and water, but notes: "All that being said, there are some amazing buildings being designed and built-in Bali. Nevertheless, it is clear that the building regulations are far from conducive to people's privacy as you do see structures being built too close to their boundaries and often overlooking other properties and in the past buy bu almost everything on the market.

You can't count on the view forever so in most cases the new villa in Bali is designed to have the view internally. people also try to have generous open spaces both in and outdoor, giving a feeling of a seamless transition between the outdoor and indoor areas for easeful tropical living.

This idea of blurring boundaries between indoor and outdoor harks back to earlier pavilion-style living in wall-less or semi-walled structures, a type of style that we have come to term "Bali style”. In fact, this type of structure should really be named "resort-style" or something to that effect, as Oberoi and Amandari.

Many of these new houses today explore ways of reducing power consumption for a more sustainable, low-carbon future. Others present a modern urban version of the tropical Bali design style that has its roots in traditional rural environments. All, however, combine modern technology with exotic local materials — Balinese sandstone, volcanic rock, recycled ulinwood—for breezy indoor-outdoor living.

Today's villas have eschewed the dark wood and pitched roofs for something very different from these earlier prototypes: The new wave of architecture is more lightweight, open-plan, more streamlined, definitely more Western in form Say, Neil Power. There may be a sense of place, an interpretation of Balinese courtyard living, but visually these new residences are nothing like their older counterparts. The era of having a rice granary or lumbung as a spare room is well and truly over.

Instead, he tends to immerse himself in the landscape to try to improve and emphasize natural elements and surroundings within a modern architectural vocabulary. Only by imagining the movement and sequence of spaces on a site, can one build up the emotion and set the living spaces. Another reason that architects are looking different is that plots are becoming smaller. What were once small settlements or villages are turning into towns and areas of rice fields are being erased.

Nevertheless, if a client asks me the best villa to buy in Bali we have some options and amazing villas 3/4 years old with nice pieces of land around

For first time visitors, repeat guests, those that have made Bali their home, and the Balinese themselves, there is no denying the rapid changes that have taken place on the island in the past few years. What was once a romantic, cultural getaway with rice field and temple predominating has transformed into a thrusting metropolis, especially in the built-up southern areas. Bali's slow pace of life in the main tourist and residential centers anyway is a thing of the past.

As with all change, there are positives and negatives. Increased prosperity is certainly a plus point; traffic jams, pollution and unplanned development are sad reminders of the cost of "progress". Yet, amongst the mayhem, you can still find the rich landscape and culture that has beguiled visitors for centuries. It continues to draw outsiders many of whom are building extraordinary homes.

After a year of research, we've come to the conclusion that the Bali brand is as strong as ever. Because the island is welcoming, the people some of the most beautiful on the planet, the climate salubrious, the economy buoyant-foreign investment continues, grows and multiplies. More and more outsiders—from Australia, other parts of Asia, Europe and even America are making Bali their home, and many more are investing in villas suitable for the holiday rental market.

For the most part, this book concentrates on homes, although there are one or two rentals as well. Almost all are newly built residences. We consider them the cream of the crop,representative of the exciting new architectural directions that Bali is witness to, yet by no means the norm.

We've left out the terraced villas, the cheekby jowl estates, the ribbon developments, the small condos; we're showcasing only extremely high-end, innovative properties. Some are in the countryside by the sea, in the hills, overlooking rice paddies but many are in built-up areas as is increasingly common. The homes may not have the picture postcard views of the past, in fact they're more than likely to be inward looking, but they are noteworthy nonetheless.

Each home has been chosen because of its excellent architecture, innovative design features, and cutting-edge interiors, but also because each is very different from the next. Variety is the key here; no cookie-cutter copies thank you very much. We want you to drool over their beauty in the same way we did, read about some of the new materials and methods used, maybe incorporate some of the ideas into your own homes. We're grateful to have been invited in, and I hope you'll find the houses as extraordinary as we have done.

Style, Substance and Sustainability

So what are the major changes in architecture and design in Bali? Firstly, an increased level of sophistication is increasingly sought and supplied. Craftsmanship has always been one of Bali's strengths, but it has more often than not remained in the estetic limbo.