An Unforgettable Trip to Four Seasons Sayan Hotel at Ubud Bali

I think travelling is important for an Interior Designer to experiencing about many places he or she never visit before and then may gather some design ideas to be further explored. Surely, visual and spatial experiences that are gathered during many memorable trips to some great places will then 'zipped-in' into the memory and ready to be generated as creative inspirations in a design brainstorming process.




A trip to Four Season Sayan Hotel at Ubud Bali, is one of my memorable and remarkable design trip. A trip I have done 10 years ago in the heartland of Bali. It was a time when digital camera is not common yet, this was the reason why the pictures I have enclosed in this blog post are not perfectly recorded.



I never have any idea about this hotel before this trip. This made my trip to this hotel was creating many surprising moments., because I never see and experiencing a built enclosure like this before. The ultimate journey is begun when I was walking on the connecting blue steel bridge over a small valley try to find the hotel main entry that is situated in the middle of a big pond. And the entry opening finally found as a remarkable grand stair that leads the visitors through a hole in the bottom of the pond's basin. The entry gate itself is a kind of tranquil 'porte cochere' in the middle of the pond that floating in the middle of the valley scenery. Surprising smooth entry transition and procession is actually happened when the visitors walk through the stair from the pond upstairs and the suddenly found a lobby downstairs with its different inviting atmosphere.

The walkthrough session then continue try to find the hotel rooms through a long corridor with continuous water feature that creates a strong sensation of small river side path way. The smell and voices that come from the flowing water feature is transmitted through all the room corridor sides and provides tranquilize ambiance.


The hotel room I have visited was a compact two-storey suites room that was consisting of a nice small lounge upstairs and bedroom downstairs. A small void and a nice connecting stair make the upper and lower spaces are well-interfaced. A king size bed is placed directly facing to window with huge view to the outside tropical scenery where paddy field is outspread, coconut trees are waving, frangipani trees are well-growing and a glimpse of river basin is slightly visible at the far-end bottom side of the valley.

I think I have found an example of timeless and everlasting design. A sense of luxurious is naturally explored from the essence of tropical nature elements that are blended together harmoniously. No wonder if most of the major parts of the building both its architectural and interior detailed design are currently remaining in its appearances when I took a visit here about ten years ago. The design is still there and no longer obsolete. I always take a great respect to The Architect and Interior Designer who worked on the designs of this naturally wonderful place.

JUNIOR SUITE ROOM REFURBISHMENT, A Design Proposal for a Five Star Hotel at Nusa Dua Bali

The Hotel is situated in Nusa Dua at south-end-peninsula of Bali Island. The area is a busy tourism enclave area with many of large international five star hotels which is located along Nusa Dua Beach.

This is could be defined as beach hotel room, but actually the hotel buildings existence along Nusa Dua Beach look very dense. I think most of the hotel rooms at this building block could not have a comfortable direct viewing to beautiful panoramic scenery of Indian Ocean.

This Junior Suite Room itself is placed in main building block of the hotel and facing to the garden landscaping. Beach scenery could only be viewed in narrow angle from balcony with neighborhood hotels as a back ground.

This refurbishment proposal issued and presented to the Hotel Owner on August 2001 in emerging and better economic situation after crisis on Asia in 1998. Visually, existing furnishing and decors appear in an obsolete look. This was becoming obvious when it compared with the existence of new hotels around.

But, main attention of course is to offer new space planning ideas. The Junior Suite Room is consisting of two floor levels. Located in lower level are sitting lounge, dining lounge and powder room, rest of the area at upper floor is used as bedroom and bathroom. A stair is placed to connect these lower and upper floors. A balcony is also provided adjacent to sitting lounge area.

First review is taken on the existing connecting stair and the furniture layout arrangement at lower level. New proposed layout scheme offered significant space improvement where stair starting point of stair step is changed and placed in better proximity near to the room entry door. This will release better free space for sitting and dining lounge at lower level. New stair could be developed better scheme than the existing, because riser height could be reduced to provide comfortable foot stepping without any obstruction to any usable bedroom space at upper level.

New long sofa is created as fixed built-in joinery and become more integrated part of the room that combined with loose single sofas and its coffee table with better direction to TV cabinet. Dining lounge is shifted to terrace balcony, this is mean half of the balcony is converted to become extended interior space. This better dining solution with garden viewing outside in compare with the existing scheme where dining table area is placed in tight space in front of the powder room.

At the upper floor, main intention is to improve the bathroom scheme in related with new arrangement of wardrobe, bed, writing table and of course the new void at formerly half of existing terrace balcony. Bedroom size is bigger than the existing scheme, because formerly existing void space is converted as bedroom extended area.

BALICAMP, a Software Development Camp in the Heartland of Bali

During the year of 1998 I was deeply involved in the design development process of Balicamp Software development Camp in Bali. We were experiencing a great design sessions involving Interior Designer, Architect and Client to formulate and generate the idea from early conceptual stage.

There were 3 (three) main building blocks consisting of the main building block, working modules and dwelling units. All of these facilities are situated in 2 (two) hectares land in a slope of mountain concealed from the main street in the heart of Bali Island. There is a river and paddy fields at the lower end side of the mountain slope.

Main building block accommodates lobby area, coffee shop and function hall at first level where are hidden underneath main street level. Main working space, library and small meeting rooms are situated at lower floors. A pool is situated at the lowest level adjacent to Main Building block including changing rooms, restroom and game room.

Separated from Main Building are working modules and dwelling units which are randomly located away from the main building. Working modules allow the programmers to work in a small team or group. Typically, every working module is provided with a kind of long and continuous working desk which is fixed along perimeter window. Every group members can work facing to their computer monitors and enjoying Balinese landscape as a background. It feel like they work in their own private vacation home. 

 
 A sunken seating arrangement is centralized in the middle of working module that allow every member of the group can have brainstorming session, discussions or just take a break-out. A nice relaxing area in the inside of pyramidal shape space underneath the high 'alang-alang' roof.

 Dwelling unit is place for the programmers where they can sleep and take a rest like they do these in their own home. Lounge area, dining space, pantry corner and rest room are situated at lower floor. Bedroom is situated at mezzanine deck and accessible from a connecting wooden stair which is situated at the internal corner side of dwelling unit.

Most of working desks in Balicamp are designed as sharing bench configuration that enable flexibility and encourage interactivity. Several group of loose lounge seating and small open meeting space are always situated adjacent to the sharing bench configurations that enable work group members to have positive interactions to each others. This, as client hope will encourage everybody to cooperate in devising solutions to fit client’s need.

 Interior scheme is simply natural.  Various type of natural stones and natural wood become dominant design elements. Yellow-red marble from East-Java become major hard flooring surfacing, Kempas wood from Kalimantan become accent wood flooring and yellow cobble stone from Lombok become feature wall treatment. Solid Red-Merbau wood log from Papua become main materials to grand stair at lobby, tall coconut posts become main structure of big bird cage in the lobby and rough teak woods become typical materials to the furnitures. ‘Eceng-gondok’ weaving material from Central Java is typical covering for working chairs.

 The Building itself provide openings that enable maximum view to the surrounding natural environment and bring it to the internal sides as integrated part. A blend and conversation in-between internal enclosure and surrounding external environment creates physically borderless working environment for the programmers. This, as client hope will inspire everybody work in a hybrid culture of creativity that draw on the latest technological advantages to meet the demands of the new millennium.

As Interior Designer we have suggested to the Architect at early design stage, that all internal spaces at lobby level shall elaborate the shape of architectural roof shape. Spacious internal spaces then simply create. Obviously, lighting design become an important aspect that make this spatial design intentions are well defined.

Mezzanine deck which is inserted at the coffee shop become interesting transition element. Nice entry procession is created when somebody walking at the parking yard and walking-through porte-cochere to entering the sunken-lobby area. A tall bird cage, strongly fulfill the high lobby space. Consisting of 4 (four) of 6 (six) meter high coconut three columns and chopper dome, this bird cage is really a main point of interest at lobby space. Hanging wood louvers are floating in the high ceiling space at the adjacent meeting room. This simply create high space feeling and functionally useful to place-down the lighting fixtures.

All design approaches as describe above, basically is a result of collaborative and intensive conversation involving Interior Designer, Architect, Lighting Designer and Engineers that try to capture the client idea that they never imagined before. Maybe, until the Balicamp was completely built and finished, everybody who involved in the project then can have interpretation, what kind of facility is this?

As noted In Balicamp marketing brochure there was an imaginative conversation:”What is this place?” Our visitor asked. Is it a mountain retreat? Is it an artist’s colony? Is it a think-thank or is it a playground? We reply:”A corporation on the cutting edge”.