Transcription
On the tropical island of Bali, Indonesia, there are homes tucked into the jungle that look like something out of a fairy tale. They're designed to have soaring roof lines, few walls or windows, and nearly everything fashioned from bamboo.
"Why did you want to use exclusively bamboo?" "Cuz it's beautiful. Cuz it's versatile. It's lightweight."
A bamboo tunnel leads to the front door of Allora Hardy's most recent creation, a four-bedroom family home that lets nature in. "You're using structural elements that are the same shape that they are in the forest. So, something about that makes it just feel like it's growing around you. No wallpaper needed." Bamboo is used for the beams, the floors, the railings, the furniture. "You're making bamboo do things that we're not used to seeing bamboo do."
"We just took a stand. We're like, we're not going to use any plywood. We're not going to use any sheetrock. We're not going to use any of the easy stuff. We're going to do this out of materials that we feel really good about."
This 32-year-old feels good about bamboo because it's sustainable. She says it's fully mature in 3 years and harvested without killing the root. Her mission to build with bamboo started after a 2009 trip to Bali where she'd spent her childhood. She visited the Green School, which was dreamed up by her father, jewelry designer John Hardy.
"I've been looking at this for 7 years and I'm still in." He'd sold his successful business and wanted to encourage the next generation to think about sustainability. "Kids most places understand there's a thermostat. You turn it to the number you want and it's done. But the cost of that, the cost, the cost in terms of global warming and what we're doing to the climate is huge."
The Green School is a private school with international and Balinese students. It's built mostly from bamboo, and generates half its own power, grows some of its own food, and challenges its 330 students, pre-K through grade 12, to think about their impact on the environment.
"Do you think that the bamboo the surroundings affect the way kids learn here?" "I visited the Vatican recently and I wanted to sign up when I came out the door. It's an inspiring magical place and inspiring magical places inspire magic."
The bamboo school inspired Allora Hardy to leave her design job at Donna Karen in New York and team up with the Balinese craftspeople originally assembled to build the Green School. "It's pretty." Today, 130 people work for her.
"The glass can go on top." Creating homes and furniture for her brand, Ibuku. "Here's my office." "This is your office." "And I just here." "How great."
Retired real estate CEO Peter Barge was one of the first owners to build a bamboo home in Green Village, not far from the school. "We wanted a very open bedroom. We didn't want windows. Um, but you know, it does get hot here. So the the question is, so how do you air condition your bed at night if you haven't got any windows?" And what's the answer? Laura comes up with an answer. She designs an air-conditioned bed. Air is piped through bamboo posts to cool this bed that's wrapped in mosquito netting at night. "Wow."
Barge and his wife Kinchim live in this 3,500 square foot home, which cost them about $500,000 to build. In Bali, they can't actually own the land, but have a 75-year land lease.
"How practical is a space like this?" "Oh, I think it works really, really well. I suppose people think about bugs and things like that. There's a few geckos running around, but they share the space pretty reasonably with us, so no problems with them." They say they don't even worry about earthquakes because their home gently shifts and sways.
"You can't really appreciate how big the house is until you see it from down here." "Yeah."
Back at Charma Springs, Allora Hardy's biggest creation to date. The owners gave her free rein. The design was modeled after the shape of a lotus flower. It has a sweeping central staircase and views from six stories.
"This house is made out of grass that can grow in a few years. You can build something that's just magnificent and exciting and can blow people's mind and yet it's just grass." She wants these homes to be a cathedral to building green and hopes they'll inspire by bending and blowing minds with bamboo.
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