Casa Bawa / Stilt Studios

+ 24

Description submitted by the project team. Located in the Balinese village of Pererenan is Bawa House, a sustainable, low-impact take on modern tropical living. Once a vacant lot, inhabited only by chickens, it has been brought back to life through the project’s use of natural building materials and a lush tropical garden.

Elevated on stilt foundations, the project complements the neighborhood’s traditional built environment, with a single-story design that reflects the surrounding Balinese houses. It embraces a symbiotic relationship with the land, preserving green spaces and minimizing its ecological footprint.

Adhering to Stilt Studios’ ethos of environmental stewardship, the house is made from prefabricated building elements and responsibly sourced materials, emphasizing wood for carbon storage. It uses a 3×3 meter modular system with efficient steel structures and extensive customization options, accelerating construction time and maintaining full quality control over materials. This approach not only reduces waste, but also significantly decreases the building’s carbon footprint, fusing design with eco-consciousness.

This minimalist family home consists of a main living space, three bedrooms and an office, with each room designed to connect with the outdoors. Solid walls are kept to a minimum with large sliding doors and floor-to-ceiling windows that allow natural light to flood in throughout the day. Elevated wooden walkways connect the buildings and also expand the living area. These features create long sight lines, adding to the feeling of space and openness in a relatively compact site.

The three buildings are positioned at different heights. This manipulation of vertical space creates shifting perspectives across the square terrain. The areas between the buildings are filled with trees and plants, making the house appear to be floating among the vegetation. The garden also uses vertical lines, surrounding the tallest building in the tree canopy and then spiraling down to the broad tropical leaves surrounding the pool. The vibrant garden has quickly attracted wildlife back to the land, while creating a microclimate that helps cool the site during the hottest months.

Bawa House was conceived as a counterpoint to the high-density development sweeping Bali, showing that modern family living can be achieved sustainably, with minimal impact on the environment and local community. An oasis of calm in the constant movement of southern Bali.