Project: Svarga Residence
Architects: RT+Q Archictects
Location: Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia
Area: 8,438 sq ft
Photographs by: Albert Lim K.S.
Svarga Residence by RT+Q Architects
The Svarga Residence is located in Bali, Indonesia. It was designed by RT+Q Archictects and flaunts 8,438 square feet of space, challenging the conventional Balinese designs without completely losing its heritage.
Faced with numerous restrictions and challenges such as difficult site conditions and local limitations regarding materials, the architects managed to create a modern, welcoming and comfortable residence that impresses passersby at a glance.
From the architects: “The challenge of this project was to un-balinese the typical Balinese villa form—both in terms if image and function—while retaining the intangible essence of the place. The idea was to question notions of the typical home and to un-do conventions in search of a new domestic idiom.
The notion of the home, the house, and the dwelling was dismantled (the typical courtyard house re-thought), re-examined (the common thatch-roof elements substituted), and re-constructed (rather than traditional timber, steel was used extensively) into a new image and living environment.”
“Questions about how a house functions were asked. The idea here was to create a wandering, endless, fluid, common living space that meanders through the site, in an s-shape manner. The s-shape form provides for an entry court in front and a private water court in the rear.
The idea was to create a series of spaces without definite borders which fosters a communal living experience downstairs. Access to private quarters are then made through separate individual staircases up to separate elevated ‘barns’ upstairs. Effectively, the barns become 3 separate little villas within the house. The barns sit on an upper garden, the ‘piano nobile’, are-constituted ground plane.”
“As building conventions in Bali defer from those abroad, constructing the house was a challenge in every aspect. Drawings were un-drawn as per site conditions, detailing were re-thought according to local expertise, materials substituted due to local limitations. These ‘negatives’ paradoxically enhanced the eventual product.
Due to lack of provisions in Bali, elements of the house had to be constructed elsewhere then shipped to Bali. For instance, the steels staircases were manufactured in Jakarta, windows Surabaya, and aluminium cladding again from Jakarta.”
