
Landscape In The Villas At Bisma Eight: Less Is More

The Villas at Bisma Eight (or we formerly called as Bisma Garden) is our most current finished landscape project located at Jalan Bisma in Ubud. Collaborated with the architect Andra Matin, it is the newest establishement from the same owner and management as our previous projects, Bisma Eight Hotel and Folk Pool & Gardens. Each villa is tucked behind walls for maximum privacy and complemented with its own pool, spacious rooms and secluded garden designed by SHL Asia . The landscape design is the response of what the building needs, we put less to add more. We balanced it out by designing vibrant landscape creating ambience and to soften the overall look.
Landscape at The Villa
The inspiration mainly came from the client and the Ubud’s nature. The client wished to introduce the guests to what Ubud really is, a mixture of vibrant modernity and rich tradition that runs in harmony. The contemporary interior and building is combined with vibrant greeneries and local crafts. At the first glance, the Villa at Bisma Eight looks edgy and sharp but the more we dive into it, it now soften and homey with touch of details and the breath of plants. The villa itself was pursued to be exclusive and private, thus the public area was designed to be open and spacious.


Less Texture, More Color
The public areas include lobby (entrance), spa, pathways and amphitheater/courtyard. The beauty of clean white exterior is it can be painted with various colors. In this case, the blank canvas is smeared with green hue from shrubs and trees and a touch of multicolor flower plants. During daytime when it is sunny out, these plants create an aesthetic shadow play on the white background walls. We put more colored softscape in public places but chose more simplistic plant so it would not overcrowd the area.



Less Color, More Texture
On the other hand, there is a secluded lush garden inside each villa. The landscape concept in private area is single color, focusing on different texture and shades of green. Some of the common plants in the villa’s garden are Areca palm (Dypsis lutescens) and Macarthur palm (Ptychosperma macarthurii). They have different height and unique texture to add density for the garden. Tropical plant like Elephant Ear (Alocasia) can also be found among them. It has big foliage and nice green color that suits the concept. Beside the softscape, the landscape inside the villa was completed with hardscape like wooden stepping, earth tone artwork and an outdoor shower made from natural stone.



Hardscape
The hardscape in general is dominated with muted textured white walls and terrazzo pathways. It looks clean and almost dream-like from very little color. The rest of it is kept minimalist. Other than plant, it is decorated with stones. Big stone, little stone. There are dark grey pebbles in most area, by the pond, surrounding the pool and even in open courtyard side to side with some beds of grass. It adds more texture and color for the landscape. Public places also decorated with boulders for more variation. Boulders stones are place strategically along the pathway creating a balance composition of softscape, hardscape and building.



Artwork
There is not much artwork throughout the villa. We wanted to keep it very minimalistic thus avoided heavy carving artwork that is commonly found in many resorts. Instead, we use water barrel made from terracotta. Originally water barrel is one of the Balinese household items to contain water on daily basis, however we use it merely for artwork. We matched the tone of the artwork with the roof tile of the buildings that also has the terracotta color. Both artwork and tiles have the same rustic,timeworn-like finished.
Overall, the landscape design at The Villas was aspired to complement the design. The combination of different plants and texture are put together creating simple yet and it what represents the humbleness of Ubud.
Cheers,
SHL Asia Team
Artwork: The Storyteller

Art As Part of Us
Art has been a part of human culture in some capacity or other since ancient times. It serves as a medium of not only personal self-expression, but also as a way to communicate the artist’s view of reality to other people. Working in the design industry allows us to create our own medium to express our idea. We can convey it not only through architecture and landscape design but also down to the pieces of the artworks. Artwork is an inseparable element in architecture and landscape. Some say it is the soul, others say it is the characteristic of the design as a whole. Artwork communicates the concept, and often the display of artwork more than pleases the eyes, but also touches the heart. Furthermore,not only for aesthetic values but the display of artwork is functioned as many things including for lighting, water fountain and even stepping.

We always incorporate many kind of artworks into our landscape design following each concept. Artwork can be translated into many forms including statues, sculptures, paintings, photography and installment. Depending on the space, 2 dimension artwork like painting and photography often displayed inside the building. While 3 dimension artwork such sculpture and art installation is normally exhibited outdoor as it typically takes up space. We mostly display statue, sculpture or water feature since we have numerous number of landscape project.
The Artwork of SHL Asia
Each project of course, has different concept with its artwork, some of the examples include our Natya project, Tanadewa project and Hyatt project. Following its landscape concept which is incorporating the village’s life of Bali and elevate it to the hospitality level, the artworks in our Natya resort project inspired by the things we often see in the villages. These things could be objects like chicken cages and cow bells or even the village people themselves, as we portrayed them in a relief on a wall along the pathway. The relief tells stories about daily activity in the village like a mother feeding their children or the farmer harvesting his crop.
Our other project, takes on the concept of the gods and goddess from the folk story. As like the name “Tanadewa” from Tana (land) and Dewa (God) which means Land of the Gods, the design of the artworks portrays this concept. We display a relief of the dancing goddess in some spots inside the resort. There is also a relief of Balinese mythology about Arjunawiwaha which is the story about Arjuna getting rewarded with 7 beautiful apsaras (female spirit in a Hindu culture) after accomplishing some tasks. All the statues and relief are nicely done by our artwork supplier, 66 Pottery Bali.

Different concept and artwork is displayed in Hyatt Regency Sanur. This resort is one of the pioneers in the island. We are restoring it without erasing the original characteristic of Hyatt. Working on the landscape design, we are collaborating with Tiera Design from Thailand and Ketut Suratman from Rimba Bali. In creating the statues and sculptures, we team up with the local Bali sculpture, I Wayan Sugawa from Taro Arca Dewata which has more than 20 years as a sculptor. All the newer artworks including statues, water fountains and fire torches are implementing the classic Balinese style, with the more antique feels.

Most of our landscape designs integrate tropical Balinese concept, with lush vibrant softscape combines with natural materials like woods and different kind of stones for the hardscape. Therefore our pieces of artwork are also mostly influenced with Balinese style and characteristic. We enhanced it with the flair of local values such tropical wildlife and nature, Bali daily life, or folk stories. We let our designs act as the storyteller to enhance people different life experiences. The aim is not necessarily to create the artwork that would be loved or not loved, but to add something new to the whole design and make people think about it.