Grounds Kent Architects (GKA) was formed by Martin Grounds and Jack Kent in 1993 after they successfully completed the Four Seasons Resort Jimbaran, Bali. The project has received extensive attention and has won many prestigious awards. Over 20 years, GKA have designed resorts and hotels in countries such as Australia, India, China, Morocco, Fiji, Barbados, Maldives, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and of course Indonesia. One of their dazzling hotel projects is Alaya Ubud, an exquisite resort which has 60 rooms with panoramic views of the rice fields. In his fascinating office, Martin Grounds explained many things about the design process and how he saw both the past and the present Bali.
Photos by Bagus Tri Laksono & Grounds Kent Architects
Grounds Kent Architects always has a design philosophy that is close to the term “romance”. Why “romance”?
Romance. Perhaps most people’s definition of romance translates literally as when a man and woman fall in love, however the wider definition of romance can mean many, many things. What we are designing for is people wanting to go on a holiday to experience romance between themselves and the destination: They are looking for experiences that are different to their normal daily life and this entails interpreting a broad definition of romance between a place and a person.
Beside “romance”, is there any philosophy or another hallmark that is repeatedly used by Grounds Kent Architects’ design process?
I think what we always try to do within the resort world is to let people experience the location where the hotel is being built. The hotel can often be their primary experience of the country, so if you have a hotel in Indonesia, it should be an experience about Indonesia. Bali is so unique from other parts of Indonesia, that it’s almost like its own country, so it should be a unique experience for the guest which is specifically of Bali. If you go down a little bit smaller, Ubud is a very special location within Bali, different to Kuta and Singaraja.
So, what can you do to make an “Ubud Hotel”, this is one of the other philosophies we consider and we call this interpreting “The Sense Of Place”. The hotel should have a strong sense of where it is which is interpreted in both the architecture and the experiences given to the guest.
It’s very disappointing in Bali at the moment that there is a trend for architects to completely ignore heritage and culture to produce buildings that could be anywhere in the world and have no sense of place to them. I think this is a trend which will be short lived because architects will realise how important ‘the sense of place’ thing is. It doesn’t mean you have to be traditional, it just means you have to give it a sense of being in Indonesia or in Bali or in Ubud.
Our first philosophy is to create a sense of place and then to make sure it is a “romantic” sense of place.
Where did your design inspiration come from for the design of this resort hotel?
In many ways, the inspiration for every new project comes from the location that you are designing for. So in Ubud, which is the artistic center of Bali, with dance, painting, and carving, being so prevalent, there were already inspirations within that artistic scene of Ubud which were easy to draw from. After location and culture are addressed, the actual site itself needs consideration. Alaya Ubud’s site was quite difficult because of its very narrow and long shape. So, how to plan a hotel that is really interesting on such a difficult shaped site: the left-hand neighbouring site is probably going to remain rice field for quite some time, so we orientated all of the rooms to the left-hand side, to take in the views of the very beautiful rice fields. The walkway to get to the rooms on the upper levels looks down to the small rice field on the right hand side. So we took the walk way to the right hand side and the rooms in the opposite. So again, the inspiration was coming from the actual site itself.
Alaya Ubud has been nominated for a 2014 World Luxury Hotel Award. How important are awards in adding to the prestige and appreciation of a project?
In terms of getting more work, probably not hugely important. For the hotel of course, it’s a prestige, but for the architect to win an award, it lends credibility to your client that you are a really good designer. It gives you good exposure, but does the award actually bring you more work in itself?, probably not, however, it adds credibility and prestige to your work. We don’t actively chase awards, but when they come, they are very welcome.
What were the biggest challenges while designing and constructing Alaya Ubud?
The biggest challenge was set by Jimmy Gunawan, owner and managing director of Alaya Ubud, needing to build for a two-star price and asking GKAI to design as close to a four-star result as we could get. So, the challenge was how to achieve a very economical construction with a four-star ambience to the hotel. As the price of timber in Indonesia over the last five years just went up and up, when I looked at that and the problems of the entire walkways and the balconies to be done in timber, it was a massive amount of timber and prohibitively expensive. So, we explored alternative solutions and concluded that the most economic material to use would be bamboo. It has a wonderful side benefit of being a sustainable product as bamboo grows incredibly quickly. It was an economic decision, but it led to a very strong visual quality to the hotel. So, in terms of the challenges, it was to make it very economically, and then of course the difficult shape of the site to deal with and incorporating all the Client’s requirements (spa, swimming pool etc) into this long and narrow strip of land, it was all a big challenge!
Ubud is a unique place, we can’t find in other city. Maybe Kuta and Seminyak are too crowded and hectic. Ubud has a different character…
A very, very different character. Ubud is getting increasingly crowded, as is everywhere in Bali, but still maintains the feeling that is unique to Ubud, than to let’s say Seminyak. In Ubud you can experience nature and the rice fields very easily and quickly, whereas in Seminyak, you have to travel a long way before you even see a rice field.
You have designed many hotels in Bali including the Four Seasons Jimbaran in the mid 90’s. Is there anything that distinguishes the earlier design concepts with the emerging trends of resort hotel more than two decades later?
I think Bali has grown up in those two heading to three decades. Bali has emerged as being a culturally unique location in the world. And, in the three decades since we did Four Seasons, Bali has emerged from being old world into the new world. If you wanted to buy a loaf of wholemeal bread in the 1990s, you wouldn’t be able to find it. Now there’s wholemeal bread shops everywhere in Bali. If you walked into a tourist shop in Bali in the 1990s, the girl who served you was wearing a sarong and kebaya, now you walk into the same shop in Seminyak and the girl serving you will be wearing the latest fashion.
Bali has changed. It’s a modern resort town and at the same time, it has its other character which is still the old Bali, like in Ubud. Bali still has a village structure throughout a lot of the island, but then the village, through the eye of the tourist has broken down a lot in the Seminyak and Legian areas. It’s not as obvious. If you are designing down in Seminyak, Legian and Kuta area, you are designing for modern Bali. And that’s why there are more apartments being constructed, because people want to demonstrate that Bali is a modern tourist destination. For me, it’s terribly sad, because Bali, in Kuta and Seminyak, is losing that unique character. It’s starting to be swamped by the more contemporary solutions to the problem. In old photographs of Bali, they were always instantly recognizable as being in Bali. Now, if you take a photograph of one of the streets in Jalan Legian, someone would say, ‘well maybe it’s in Surabaya or Jakarta, but not necessarily in Bali’. It is disappointing that Bali is losing that visual uniqueness.
But Bali has the right to grow more modern, doesn’t it?
I understand that there have to be modern contemporary buildings in Bali. We can’t always go back to tradition, but it’s disappointing that the architects and designers are not giving their buildings, their facades, far more of a unique Bali character. The people now working in Bali are a young new generation, and they want modern. Bali has always embraced modern - if you can replace the banana leaf that you wrapped up the ‘nasi bungkus’ with a plastic wrapper, it’s progress and moving into the more modern direction. Bali is embracing the modern and moving forward - in this project we embraced the modern with the visual elements of the building. The Bali character has been lost in a lot of developments, and therefore the experience of Bali has then been lost for a lot of tourists who are coming to Bali to experience it.
Bali’s economy is linked to tourism, and in a way I think it’s killing the attraction for people from to come to Bali when it turns into a modern contemporary city like so many others.
Of course, you can go 10 km outside Seminyak or Legian, and you can find “old Bali”, so still Bali is a wonderful attraction. But it’s sad that Kuta, Legian, Seminyak, and some other places that are now developing rapidly are losing the Bali character. For me, as a holidaymaker, I’m going to explore and find places that have Bali character. I can go out from my hotel to old Bali areas and experience the Bali culture, but why can’t I experience it in my hotel? That’s why I am disappointed in the modern Bali resorts - they are starting to lose the character of Bali through the design. A lot of these are just applied decorations that don’t capture the romance of Bali.
How do you see the development of the resort hotel for the future and what theme of resort hotel do you predict will be preferred by travelers?
It’s always difficult to answer questions like that, because we don’t necessarily do research that enables me to speak with authority about which direction this would take. But if I have to guess, my guess is a modern traveler who is looking for adventure and eco-tourism. They’re not looking for facilities. In the 60s and 70s, people were very attracted by the fact that a hotel had a huge swimming pool, water slide and a disco in the basement. The modern day travelers have facilities in their home towns that are probably better than they could find in the resort. They are looking for different cultural and visual experiences. It’s an escape from reality. And I think adventure tourism, small hotels, set in a very gorgeous natural environment. Flores, Komodo Island, Sumba and Sumbawa, I see these developments happening on those islands. Hopefully eco-sensitive, small villa style developments. These types of lodge resort hotels are going to be the attraction for the travellers of the future.
What gives you satisfaction when designing a project?
Happy client and successful hotel, this is what we strive for. It’s no good building fantastic monuments to architecture, if it’s not successful as a good hotel with a good occupancy. We had wonderful support from Jimmy and all from Alaya Ubud throughout the design process. Jimmy worked very closely with us through the design of this hotel. He was very hands on and understood what he was getting and was so supportive. This is the cast for success for us, much more important than the award. If the building is not award winning, but it’s a successful hotel, then it’s okay for us.