Journal · Project · July 2026

THE CANOPY,
a design notebook.

How an Ubud villa was born from its trees.
THE CANOPY · circular villa in the Ubud jungle
THE CANOPY, Ubud · the circular volume in its setting of trees

The client wanted a playful villa, something that stands out, that looks like nothing familiar. That was the starting point, and it was a real GO: the freedom to design differently.

The land, in Ubud, was dense and alive, covered with palms and endemic species. The first decision was the simplest, and the most binding: cut nothing down. Keep the trees, and let the house be born around them. From that constraint came the form, a circular volume that crushes nothing and lets the vegetation wrap it. The tree returns to the centre; the architecture bends to what existed before it.

The rest was built from there. A sculptural slide spirals down from the upper floor into the water, the client's playful idea become an architectural gesture. A net is stretched across the void between the two levels, a reading corner suspended above the living room. A fan-shaped ulin roof crowns the circle like a canopy, and gives the house its name.

None of this is decorative. Every gesture answers the original intention: to make this house an experience rather than an object. That is the meaning of the project, and its answer to a Bali where villas end up looking alike: an architecture you identify at a glance, and remember.

In praise of the circle, among the trees.

See the THE CANOPY project →
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