My Houzz: Open-Air Living in the Mountains of Bali
Community, jaw-dropping beauty and sustainability come together in a tropical paradise for a London expat
Houzz home tour contributor; Carousel Media productions include photo essays, multi-platform projects, animated documentary, social documentary, and community collaborations.
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A former London city slicker, Simon Evans made the move from an urban apartment to this Indonesian tropical home among the trees. He worked with local company Bali GreenWorld to design and build his new home — a two-story 377-square-foot structure made entirely out of locally sourced materials. And he cleared out all the dividing walls on the top story to create a full 360-degree view of the surrounding forest. "Words fail me when it comes to describing the extreme natural beauty surrounding me, and the unbelievable generosity, warmth and kindness of the local people," says Evans.
Houzz at a Glance
Who lives here: Simon Evans
Location: Mount Batukaru, Bali, Indonesia
Size: 115 square meters (377 square feet); 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom
That's interesting: All the building's sustainable materials were gathered within 2 miles of the house.
Houzz at a Glance
Who lives here: Simon Evans
Location: Mount Batukaru, Bali, Indonesia
Size: 115 square meters (377 square feet); 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom
That's interesting: All the building's sustainable materials were gathered within 2 miles of the house.
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| A food forest, maintained and owned by members of the local village, surrounds the home. The house's open architecture allows the endless stream of passersby from the village to stop for a friendly chat. "I do not worry about security at all, as there is always someone from around the area to keep an eye on what's going on," says Evans. "It is a complete contrast with London, where I locked my windows every night for fear of being broken into." |
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| A bench seat created from recycled boat wood faces out to the food forest. Bamboo blinds serve as walls on both stories of the house and can be tied down if the wind picks up. "If it gets cold or I feel like a bit of privacy, dropping the blinds changes the house entirely," Evans says. "When my blinds are open, you really are in the middle of it all — the rainforest and Mount Batukaru to the north, with a view down the sea to the south." |
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| Upstairs, Evans' office consists of a laptop and a beanbag overlooking the forest. "Living here is like a dream," he says. "The design of my house really allows me to experience all of nature up close." |
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| Evans put his bed on a raised platform in the center of the top floor, giving him a 360-degree forest view. Carefully managing the flow of water around the property has eradicated most areas where mosquitoes can easily reproduce, so there's no need for walls and windows. |
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| The top story has a lounge area with simple daybeds for relaxing with a book or just enjoying the view. It's no surprise that this oasis has convinced Evans to stay in Bali. "Although London has so much to offer, the price of living in a metropolis is a lack of immediate community; it felt very anonymous living there," he says. "Having now lived in an extraordinarily close community, I would find it very hard to give up that closeness." |
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| Linda Van't Hoff, a local expat and a designer at Bali GreenWorld, enjoys a cup of tea with Evans on the bottom story. Having lived in the area for 20 years, she knew how to design the house to fit in with the local environment. "From the bamboo and rocks which form the frame, through to the tali ijuk — the string used to tie the bamboo — which was hand made from local palm tree fibers, everything that could be locally sourced was," Evans says. |
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| Local fruit and flowers provide splashes of color to the minimalist and clutter-free interior. "It's a beautiful feeling inside Simon's house," Van't Hoff says. "It's a bit like being in a bamboo grove, with the warm yellow tones of the bamboo dominating the space in a very natural and peaceful way." |
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| The roof, made up of 30,000 shingles, was the most laborious part of this project and took the longest. Each shingle had to be made, cleaned, treated and placed individually. The massive amount of these handmade pieces meant that much of the work had to be outsourced to surrounding villages. |
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| "It was a spectacular process to witness," says Evans of the roof-building process. "The piles of shingles appearing outside each family compound and lining the local roads were a constant reminder of not only the scale of the project, but also the ease with which the local Balinese people work together." |
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| Evans had all of the locally sourced bamboo treated onsite with boric acid. To ensure that bugs stay out of the bamboo, he occasionally smokes the house with a portable fireplace. |
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| The ground-floor kitchen is open to the elements. Evans often cooks using food he's grown on his own patch of land. "Every week I am able to reduce the amount of food I need to buy, with well over 50 edible plants already growing organically on my land, and more gardens and food plants being added weekly," he says. |
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| The home's only fixed walls surround the ground-floor bathroom. Bamboo shutters open directly into the garden. A nearby spring feeds the Bali rock bowl and bamboo tap. |
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| The house is set about 325 feet from one of the entrances to a protected rainforest. Its presence stops poachers from entering the forest unnoticed and prevents off-road biking and other damaging activities. |
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| The house's shape mirrors the silhouette of Mount Batukaru behind. The home sits on 2,000 square meters (more than 21,000 square feet) of land, which used to primarily be a coffee grove. Now the land hosts a wide variety of fruit trees, vegetables and other useful plants, including Western salad leaves and herbs. Houzz call: Share your ecofriendly home with us. |
Ideabook published on Oct. 17, 2012.
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If there's no stagnant water in the gardens, there are no mosquitoes." And as iamnotena has said the rest of the bugs you can live quite harmoniously with. Simon also has swallows flying through.
My house is also surrounded by tropical forest and there is usually no stagnant water around, but we sometimes get mosquitoes, particularly when it rains after a dry spell.
With regards to the mosquitoes, I am not an expert on the matter but have learnt a lot from people here and seen the dramatically fast results when there is a brief flare up. The problem is not just large areas of stagnant water but small ones and often small ones which are easy to miss. Basically anything that can hold water, even in small volumes, can cause a problem. That can include things such as up turned fruit skins, piles of large leaves (banana leaves can be bad for it) or even in the flowers of some varieties of halyconia. Basically if you can eradicate that water, you are winning. It eventually becomes second nature to look out for small places where water can collect and fix it as you walk around.
With western style houses there is a mix of Thai and Bali and this works so well - take a look at this Villa which shows you the blend of the two styles so well. Note that it is a fully modern western home with a wonderful tropical flavor - http://hometipster.com/kamala-beach-villa/
Thanks for a great article Jeni.
Graham
Thank you, Simon, for sharing your world with us. Clearly, your heart is as open as your home.
Live long and prosper. ;)
I'm amazed at the emphasis on bugs in previous posts. In Bali the bugs were negligible compared to where I lived, both in Australia and the USA.
When you have the ability to open your house to the outdoors you do not need to "fill" it with furniture, that seems to be more a side-effect of enclosure. In western design terms: Mid-Century vs Victorian.
I live in Southern Georgia and mosquitoes are a HUGE issue. We also clear away standing water...but...they are still here! Enough so you cannot sit outside from May through October without screens or covering yourself from head to toe. Our dogs are only out for 15 minutes several times a day...even they can't stand the bugs.
And snakes...oh boy! Many are posionous and if you're not careful they will come in your house. So no doggie doors or spaces under or above your doors for them to slither through.
Even though I couldn't live there...it's nice to read about how others enjoy their house and surroundings. Thanks for the ideabook.
I live on a small island in the Caribbean.
I always say that the mosquitoes are here to remind us that we aren’t in paradise yet.
Very unfortunately, this doesn’t help to get rid of these –sorry to say—worthless insects that are way beyond being just annoying!
I like the idea and special the bamboo structure. 377 SF is perfect for a living area for 2 and it look very roomy in the picture. I grew up in Vietnam when my childhood lived live with my grandparent's house with a structure similar like this, roof was coconut leaves, stud was make with bamboo so does siding, grandpa captured water from the rain to use all year round. I like that Simon said that "he using food's that he grown on his own".
What is the dark wood/ box next to the toilet? water container? It's funny that I have not seen the toilet like that since 1986...it is very common in southeast asia country bathroom.
I love it. The first thought was came in my mind was, "yes, food from the own yard, no worry to set alarm when you leave the house, no utility bills, take a shower in a bathroom with 2 windows". It is great that you still have electric.
Question: How do you do 3 big bamboo post embedded to concrete at the corner? any anchor?
Thanks for posting this lovely article,
Michelle
You are an inspiration to people like myself who long for a simpler life
Over the past few years I have become more and more inspired by balinese
Design! I just love the feel of minimal and organic but not cold and sterile.
Very awesome Best of luck to you
I think it would take a little while to adjust, but this looks like great way to live. Aside from the surrounding food growing on the property, where do you source your food? What sorts of things are available?
What is the low temperature there?
I think some lifestyle detail shots of a typical days meals, a walk in the tropical forest, your Balinese adopted family, visitors, a market ( if there is one), etc would be interesting to see.
You go, Simon!
Sorry to poop on the party, but even though I always enjoy seeing locally sourced construction etc etc, I can't help but feeling a little disturbed by the whole thing.
I don't know much about Bali but am curious about the amount of space and type of construction Simon's Balinese neighbors have. My first gut feeling when I read the article was that in such a house, probably an entire local family could fit, and despite all of Simon's efforts (which I praise) in trying to be sustainable, the end result is still a relatively huge house built for one person, the latter coming from a rich country and having the means to drive a project mostly made to suit his vision. And how do you reconcile this with the fact that you think the land is 'best owned by the Balinese'? What is the actual 'right' place of a westerner in a non-western country and do you think this is its appropriate spatial expression?
Would love to hear your thoughts Simon - and please don't take this personally, i am genuinely interested in these issues and your stand.
++
ps: 2 small design questions: why, in a tropical climate (which intuitively seems to be the best fitted for outdoor showers) are the 'house's only fixed walls' around the bathroom? could you explain the reasons for this choice?
also, could you talk about the way your recycle or treat or deal with your waste / soiled water in general (in these rural settings I suspect there is no sewage system?)
The rest of the other insects and animals are going to eat each other and keep the populations of any one species in check if allowed a healthy environment and the freedom to get on with it. They are your pest control!
Great to see appropriate design for the tropics too - maximising ventilation and reducing thermal mass.
@Cathleen Savage - I bet you could get a food forest growing in your area too. Contact a local permaculture designer.
Beautiful peaceful simplicity surrounded by the energy of trees....
On insects and snakes etc. Years ago we were asked to develop a non-toxic pest control regime for, what was at the time, the most expensive hotel on Bali (Hotel Begawan Giri, with 8h of gardens). Obviously, standards had to be very high, and we succeeded by looking at the life cycle of each pest, then finding a non-toxic method to control them. We found solutions for everything, including termites, so don't give up, there's very likely a solution for your pest issues that doesn't involve poisoning your home environment. Tip: It's mainly environmental management, aided by a few safe control materials like Boric Acid and Neem Oil.
On snakes, just a quick story. There's a very dangerous snake, very venomous and sometimes aggressive, in Australia called simply, the Brown Snake, it's a scary beast to have around your home. Now there's another snake, the Red Bellied Black Snake, also venomous, but non aggressive, and not a threat to humans, and guess what? ..this one eats Brown Snakes. So, if you have Red Bellied Blacks around your home, you don't have Brown Snakes. Lesson is... not all snakes are dangerous to humans, even if they're venomous, and some actually help us, if we take the time to understand what's going on around us.
On colonizing Bali, I've been here with my family for many years, and there are two sides to this argument. Many foreigners are self-centered and disconnected from the local people. The best we can say about them is that they create income. There are however foreigners who engage with locals, who care, and who bring many benefits. In our mountain village, we've created work, created opportunities for small businesses, sponsored social programs and individuals, and improved the state of the environment.
It's like anything we do, there are good and bad ways to do things, caring and responsible ways to live, and selfish, uncaring ways to live. It's not what we're doing, it's how we're doing it. We love cars, but they should be more sustainable, we need houses, but they should be more sustainable, we should mix with other cultures, but we should do so in more sustainable ways.
Simon' house is located on, what was, a poacher's track into the rainforest. Just his presence their has meant that poachers are denied an access to the forest. More people like Simon living around the edge of the forest, means the forest, its plants and animals, is safer.
We are attempting to demonstrate sustainable solutions.. Simon's house is a good example of simple living in the mountains, and we're now building a modern, solar-powered, rather minimalist, beach resort in an attempt to prove this can also be done sustainably; www.sumbersariecovillas.com
We've built thousands of sustainable sewage and wastewater systems using gardens (Search: Selection and Implementation of Sustainable Sanitation Systems in Post-Tsunami Reconstruction in Aceh), we've built successful ecotourism businesses, and we've done quite a lot of what we call, environmental landscaping. The solutions exist, that's not the problem (Permaculture is the basis of everything we've done for many years, it's the only system in the world, which provides us with the tools to practically integrate complex designs) ...changing behaviors is the hard part...
You are absolutely kidding yourself in an attempt to justify your selfish actions. You are actually cutting the beach off from the locals, who have used it for centuries to gather their food and for recreation. I have seen egotistical Westerners go to these lovely places pretending to be green and spiritual, while in actual fact they are colonising their places in an insatiable appetite for profit and in order to extend their enormous egos further. The locals tolerate tourism because it brings jobs and income, but the honest truth is that they like to see the tourists go home, afterwards.
Nobody should hassle people who are actually doing tings, unless they are doing more, or better.
We take waste treatment very seriously: The solids are separated.. composted, recycled, or collected and dumped at the nearest land fill. Liquid wastes are treated in a watertight septic tank, then via a 10m long vegetated leachfield. Have a look at www.greenworldbali.com for more details.
A long history of environmental engineering in the Pacific and Asia has illustrated to me the impact of so-called "environmental tourism". Leave these good people alone and stop buying up their beaches.
Thanks for this post. :)
To my fishes. It's one way to control mosquito breeding. As mentioned earlier, use the fan to ward them off. Smoking them means health/ environmental issues.
This is a predictably Western comment - please don't spoil the illusion by bringing up issues of social conscience, let's just admire the architecture and forget the locals. Can't you see just how selfish this attitude is? And as I say, based on many years working on environmental issues in the region.
We are all creatures living together on one planet. Yes, we have a responsability, no matter where we go, to take care of the place we call home, and make sure we respect those who were there before us, but to say this man can't move to another country because he's not from there because he might not take care of waste as another person sees fit is absurd. to say he shouldn't live there because he's not local is the purest form of xenophobia.
hum, no need to become tense on any side here.
even though expressed in a 'I am taking no gloves' way, the issues raised by babog are actually very valid, and touch at the heart of the whole 'sustainability' question:
- YES, talking about ethics and impact on local living is perfectly suited to a home improvement website, because construction in general is amongst the biggest consumers of material and CO2 emitter; and because everything we do has an impact somewhere.
Any of your choices to either improve or minimise your comfort is directly feeding an industry and a lifestyle which other people will want or reject, with environmental and social consequences (for example: we could all choose to not make any home improvement / decoration / construction for a full year besides necessary maintenance, and live with what we have - how would that rate on the scale of sustainability?)
And the question of local vs global is a theme which architects, designers and philosophers have been pondering for ages - so no need to slam a commenter because he dares put the finger where it hurts.
Both of you raise a very important point which is not discussed in the article since I guess the drive was more about the building. Social responsibilty and community integration is the keystone to a project like this. It is also, as @babog points out, more often that not the point which is completely ignored or dealt with on a minimal scale after the event.
My relationship with the local people is the reason I am here. Yes, it is beautiful here and yes it can be tranquil, however to imagine that my life is made up of hours gazing into the forest would be incorrect. Community life here is hectic, and as part of the local community I am very much involved in everything that goes on in the village. Balinese Hinduism is extraordinarily demanding of the Balinese both in terms of money and time. Add to that the Indonesian sense of gotong royong ("joint bearing of burdens") and you have a very busy community who are constantly working together for the communal good - the first question when I, or anyone else in the village, does anything is how it is going to affect the community as a whole. It is spectacular to witness from the outside and humbling to be part of. It can also be difficult, frustrating and at times downright tiring. That is what I love about here and sadly, it is also the part which is all too often ignored by Westerners arriving here.
As I'm sure @babog is aware, every community is different, has different needs, desires and lives in a different context. In the same way that it is not possible to apply a universal template to ecotourism, it is also not possible to declare that all western presence is damaging and unwanted. I would suggest that @babog looks more into this concept of local variation as unfortunately some of the comments made are really not applicable to Bali, let alone this unique part of it. The world is changing very quickly for people here. The recent appearance of the internet, more western style financial management and western medicine has people here confused and open to abuse. The ability to have a personal relationship with someone with experience of this western world has been and continues to be invaluable to many people here.
With regards to @tetoette's query about the land and housing situation, the land I contract is a small part of my landowner's farmland. Their compound is much bigger, more extravagent and would be much more expensive to build than mine. This community has lived here for innumerable generations with their main income from farming. Familys here often own large areas of highly productive land and live in beautiful multiple generational compounds that have been built up and passed down through the years. The problem of poverty here is relatively new and much of it is down to plummetting food prices and environmental instability. People here can make it through this relatively unscathed, however they will openly tell you that they need help doing this as their world up until now has been very different.
On a side note about the land: the land was previously and still is a coffee plantation (about 2km out of the village where no self-respecting Balinese person would live) with a number of higher value, slower crops which take many years to become productive. A total of about 4% of these trees were removed in order to make the house and the garden: Anything that was productive was worked around as much as possible. If I wish to cut down any of the higher value crops or a substantial amount of the coffee I have to consult with my landowners and have to pay to do so. The output of the coffee is also, technically, the property of my landowners, however they laugh at me if I try to get them to take my comparatively paltry harvest. My landowner now works as my gardener and land manager and makes much more money (and much more reliable money) each month maintaining the same crops he used to sell, along side my other gardens.
This is extremely interesting and helpful, and will definitely be something I'll keep mulling over in the future. Especially the part where you talk about being available to give support amidst technological and economical change. I'm still unsure about where I stand, but at least am more informed.
Anyway, I hope more conversations like this can develop on houzz in a FRIENDLY way - I found the backlash and 'sustainable preaching' over a dissenting comment more scary than the dissent itself.
++ t
A quick defense of my grumpiness, because I don't want to put anyone off the principles of social and environmental sustainability that Simon and I are most concerned about.
My wife and I have been committed environmentalists for many years, but we haven't just complained and criticized, we've consistently done things, demonstrable, measurable things, and there's a hard lesson you learn over time, which is, half of your worst enemies, when you're in the 'green' movement... are in the green movement.
Breast-beating idealists are not saving the world... Practical, respectful, caring, hard working people are trying to do it, bit by bit, in their own sphere of influence. If this sounds preachy or self-righteous to you, I ask you too, what have you actually done to turn things around?
On Houzz... Our homes and workplaces are incredibly important if we're to live happy, fulfilling lives. They also have serious impacts on our increasingly fragile environment. For Houzz to stay relevant, there really should be a continuous and vigorous discussion on social and environmental sustainability, right up there, alongside aesthetics, cost and other issues.
So many of you who posted comments sound really nice, so here's my truth.. With care and commitment, you can do a lot of good in a developing country, and in return, you get the many benefits of living in a real community. To those of you who dream of doing what my family did many years ago, and what Simon has done recently, my advice is... just do it ;)
Some places in the world are more beautiful, rich, fertile or exciting and people are going to want to visit and live there.
Humanity has done this for thousands of years and will continue to do so.
It is simply short sighted to try and ignore/prevent this.
If you do, the result will be you stop those with a social conscience from moving, leaving only those who aren’t swayed by such arguments, resulting in a far worse situation.
What you can do is appreciate, learn and celebrate when good people do move and make a real effort to fit in and “be the changes they want to see in the world”.
From what I read of the article, rather than ride rough-shod over the locals and set up his previous life, the owner has tried in every way to join the local population, from his materials down to the way he’s managed the ownership of the land, which has resulted in a beautiful house.
The bad things babog mentioned do happen (they happen in the village I grew up in daily), and I suspect he/she’s quite rightly reacting angrily to them, but it seems completely misplaced and counter-productive to do so here.
Best of luck with your new life.
definitely fitting a specific need. Almost like a exotic camping trip. Not for me, but definitely for some.
To our friend in Mexico, please, by all means contact me (Norm) through one of our websites:
www.ecolodgebali.com or www.baligreenworld.com
We are very active socially, in terms of finding ways to encourage communities to embrace the principles of sustainability, and we are also in a coffee growing area, so you never know, maybe we can help each other.
One of my concerns was relative poverty. Explanation: in the west (excluding the USA?) people in poverty are rich compared to people in the developing world because they have access to free health care, never starve and have higher purchasing power. But their poverty is still real because, partly, everyone else around them has more stuff. I wondered about relative poverty with the really big house. It was good to hear about the compound being grander than Simon's house, but I suspect, not grander per person. Can you post some pics.
I was intrigued by the idea that there was no poverty there before. My crude understanding of populations and resources suggests that that means there must have been either contraception, infanticide (some cultures did it and I'm NOT saying the Balinese did, ok?), war, emigration, late marriage, early violent death or something to stop population increase. Got any insights? What about incites? Babog? I would like to know your background, too.
Go n'eirigh an t'ath leat!
(Good luck to you!)
I admire your courage to leave the Western lifestyle you have grown up in. Being involved in the community where you live is the best way for the locals to accept you and appreciate your presence. That is one great example to show the rest of the world that there are other beautiful people out there living in harmony and self reliance. I'm sure the Balinese are grateful for whatever knowledge you can share even just telling stories about where you came from will be appreciated!
I brought my family to the US to seek specialized management for my Special Needs daughter, choosing to leave behind siblings, friends, a perfect job and even our own home. Talk about "not having to pay mortgage all your life" until you great here! Just like you, it did not take much for my parents to build our house all 7 of them!
Good luck to your chosen path in beautiful Bali, may you prosper and succeed in whatever your heart yearns.