On a long rectangular shape 1277 M2 site, the main structure of the two-storey villa is located near the long southern side, while creating a generous open area of pool and lawn on the northern side. This configuration allows all the rooms in the villa — four bedrooms each equipped with its own bathrooms, living, dining, and kitchen to all be opened on both their south and northern sides (avoiding the direct east west sun direction of the tropic) with the lawn and the pool becoming the main focal points throughout the villa. From the neighbourhood street, the considerably tall massing of the main volume of the villa is set back and scaled down through a strategic configuration of the front part of the site where an enclosed carport area, a landscaped front yard (with a pond) and a foyer pavilion with a flat wooden roof act as a humble entry court to the house. Further toning down the volumetric composition, each of the structural elements are covered by a distinct natural building material — the heavy grey river stonewall as the carport enclosure, the timber columns and screen of the foyer, the unfinished concrete pathway softened by the landscaped garden and the pond.
The foyer pavilion is a reference to the aling-aling element in Balinese dwelling compound, a transitional screen element where the act of entering one’s house is emphasised as a kind of procession that marks where the private space of a house begins. In this project, D-Associates spatialises this traditionally surface like architectural element into a small foyer space enclosed and supported by a row of recycled ulin timber (previously used as railway track sleepers).
The main structure of the villa inside is divided into two volumes of space: the upper level area is configured as a floating dark wooden box sheltering over the lower level area, a contrastingly open and light transparent volume that acts as a platform of family living activities. This strategy again tones down the massing of the villa in order to maintain a sense of home and human scale. The heavy tone of the dark coloured ulin timber and plywood finishing of the upper volume introduces warmness into the villa from the strong tropical sun. The lower volume appears more as a platform of space that merges with the pool and the garden due to the lightness of its enclosing elements: the pilotis like row of thin round concrete columns painted in white and the floor to ceiling panels of glass windows that can be thoroughly opened. This configuration is also a modern articulation of the rumah panggung (wooden house on poles) typology, a common vernacular dwelling type built in tropical region in Southeast Asia.
Project name: DRA House
Architects: D-Associates – http://d-associates.com/
Location: Bali, Indonesia
Area: 1013 m²
Year: 2016
Photographs: Mario Wibowo – https://www.mariowibowo.com/
Lighting Design: d-associates architect
Contractor: PT.CKBP, Paul Tendean
Interior Consultant: Sammy Hendramianto for Hadiprana
Structure Engineer: Krisna Triadi
Mep Consultant: Rusman Riady
Review: Amanda Achmadi
Principal: Gregorius Supie Yolodi
Partner In Charge: Maria Rosantina
Senior Project Architect: C.Kunti Dewanggani
Inner Light by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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