The Arc by IBUKU

The Arc is a feat of engineering; it required months of research and development and fine tuning of many tailor-made details. The result is a very refined design with an immediate beauty, which stands as a testament to IBUKU’s commitment to expanding horizons in architecture and design.

The Arc employs one of nature’s greatest strategies for creating large spaces with minimal structure. Within a human ribcage, a series of ribs working in compression are held in place by a tensioned flexible layer of muscle and skin. This creates a thin but strong encasement for the lungs. In the case of The Arc, arches working in compression are held in place by tensioned anticlastic gridshells. These fields of gridshells appear to drape across the spaces between impossibly thin arches soaring overhead, giving a whimsy, intimacy and beauty to the space. Although, the gridshells appear to hang from the arches, they actually hold them up

“The gridshells use shape stiffness to form the roof enclosure and provide buckling resistance to the parabolic arches. The two systems together create an unique and highly efficient structure, able to flex under load allowing the structure to redistribute weight, easing localised forces on the arches,” explains Neil Thomas, Director of Atelier One.

IBUKU’s origins lie in the belief that bamboo can change how we build. Bamboo has had a long tradition as a building material in Bali. In the 1980s, the arrival of young designers from western countries took bamboo building to an exciting new level. Linda Garland pioneered this movement, attracting international attention with her innovative designs in houses and furniture. She pioneered new treatment methods to preserve the bamboo and prolong its life. Linda’s work also inspired her friend John Hardy, founder of Green School to take a greater interest in bamboo.

John quickly came to see bamboo as the future of sustainable building and made a vow never to construct another wood or concrete building. John’s first serious bamboo building was conceived with architect Cheong Yew Kuan in a rice field full of tall umbul-umbul flags. Inspired by the natural curve of the bamboo, they tied the tips of the poles together into a towering arch. This ultimately became Kapal Bambu, the ‘bamboo ship’ showroom at the John Hardy compound in Bali.

In late 2007 John gathered a team to design and build the Green School. The first structure at Green School was a bridge, connecting the two sides of the river valley campus. It still stands as an outstanding example of what is possible when architects, engineers, designers, and craftsmen come together to build in a new way.

Joerg Stamm, a German builder who specialises in bamboo, developed the concept of creating central basket-like towers to hold up larger buildings, as well as the ‘Lidi’ concept, giving IBUKU access to their signature curvilinear vocabulary.

In 2010 Elora Hardy, John’s daughter, returned to Bali to continue the evolution of bamboo design under the name IBUKU. Together she and her team of talented Indonesian designers and architects have built sixty new bamboo structures on the island of Bali. Nine of these buildings now make up Green Village, a community of luxurious private homes neighbouring Green School.

“What we are doing is reinventing the rules and standards of what a building can look like,” says Elora Hardy. “These buildings are a testament to the power of bamboo and the possibilities of sustainable architecture. IBUKU continues to expand the potential of building exceptional bamboo structures.”

Creating this building however, was not without its challenges according to the IBUKU team. “Design was around 6 months and construction was around 8 months,” Elora Hardy says.

“Given the unprecedented nature of the structure, there were a lot of unanswered questions in the beginning, so part of the brief was to research and develop until we had adequate information for Atelier One to complete their engineering work. Through multiple rounds of structural testing and constant collaboration with them, we were able to predict that which was previously unpredictable. The process of applying high precision engineering to bamboo, a material with infinite variability, was long and challenging but well worth the results.”

At The Together Project we love the beauty and innovation of this design, its careful integration with its environment and use of natural, local materials.

Discover more at Green School Bali and Ibuku