Alexis Dornier

Bird Houses

Bird Houses
© KIE

Bird Houses 

Alexis Dornier

ARCHITECTS
Alexis Dornier

LEAD ARCHITECT
Alexis Dornier

CONSTRUCTION
Surya Kembar

PHOTOGRAPHS
Kie

AREA
327 M²

YEAR
2022

LOCATION
Ubud, Indonesia

CATEGORY
Houses

Text description provided by architect.

A group of friends joined forces to build their dream of a floating village surrounded by a tropical forest in the heart of Bali.

The project is composed of three stilted structures encompassing a shared pool and sundeck space designed through fluid shapes such as walkways, water features, and flower beds.

Bird Houses
© KIE
Bird Houses
© KIE
Bird Houses
© KIE

The largest building is nestled into a sloped site overlooking a small creek running past the property, while the studio and the guest house flank the entrance of the site.

Together the structures create an ensemble that integrates into the existing foliage of large trees which were maintained to provide external shading and privacy.

The trees also become the canopy for outdoor resting places as part of a landscape design resembling a miniature park.

Bird Houses
© KIE
Bird Houses
© KIE
Bird Houses
© KIE

These so-called birdhouses blend into nature, and their pivoting floor plans create expressive inhabitable sculptures that form exciting relationships to the outside while being very present as memorable interpretations of the idea of a house.

The experience of exploring those structures is a journey through the three-dimensional, maze-like arrangement of their different spaces, radiating out from their central vertical circulation elements into their surroundings.

Bird Houses
© KIE
Bird Houses
© KIE

Carefully crafted openings create heterogeneous elevations to the buildings.

All rooms have varying heights and their dimensions span from compact to expansive. Windows have different formats to expose views onto the ground and into the sky.

Bird Houses
© KIE
Bird Houses
© KIE

The materiality of these inhabitable sculptures forms a collage of solid volumes holding circulation elements and bathrooms, while the main spaces are textured in with their surfaces clad in wood from both the inside and the outside.

soft and indirect and integrated lighting conceives a cozy, inhabitable space, detached from the ground and glowing like a lantern in the midst of the lush Green.

Bird Houses
© KIE


Bird Houses
Plan - Guest House
Bird Houses
Plan - Guest House Roof


Bird Houses
Mass Plan - Level 01
Bird Houses
Mass Plan - Level 02
Bird Houses
Mass Plan - Level 03
Bird Houses
Mass Plan - Roof Level


Bird Houses
Studio Elevation 01
Bird Houses
Studio Elevation 02
Bird Houses
Studio Elevation 03
Bird Houses
Studio Elevation 04


Bird Houses
Plan - Studio Level 01
Bird Houses
Plan - Studio Level 02
Bird Houses
Plan - Studio Level 03
Bird Houses
Plan - Studio Roof


Bird Houses
Studio Section A
Bird Houses
Studio Section B
Bird Houses
Guest House Sections

Alexis Dornier
T +62 812 41881599
Alexis Dornier
Jl. Penestanan Kelod No.1, Sayan, Kecamatan Ubud, Kabupaten Gianyar, Bali 80571, Indonesia