German architect Alexis Dornier has designed a pair of treetop boutique hotels in a tropical forest of a suburb of Ubud and Bali, Indonesia. 

Raised on steel and slender stilts, the new hotel was aimed at leaving a minimum footprint in nature with a cost effective budget. 

Named Lift Treetop Boutique Hotel, the hotel emerged as a small experimental project that follows a faster process to be built. The hotel merges an industrial look and natural appearance with its materials and tectonics used outside. 

"Our architecture studio is in close proximity to it, and the beginnings of the project were a testing ground for ideas on how to lift structures off the ground, to have a less invasive footprint and impact, more cost effective and faster to build," said Alexis Dornier. 

"Many developments here on this island use high quantities of concrete, and the experience is often times the same." 

"We wanted to challenge that and create light architecture while suggesting a surreal mix of industrial impermanent structures embedded into a tropical forest," Dornier added. 

Each of the structures has a different internal organization, material and appearance. Somewhere stuck in the past and the future, Dornier's hotel tries to bridge different aspects of Bali into a memorable experience, and creates a backdrop for pictures to take or keep in mind. 

The park like setting holds a small sauna, a little pool, bar, benches and small recreational areas. This plus the yoga deck way above ground provides enough reason to stay there for a couple of days. The studio is also planning on extending the hotel further down to the river.

"Our aim was to create spaces where people could retrieve to, detached and off the ground, unpretentious and reduced to a minimum," said the office. 

"We wanted to evoke a sense of impermanence and allow for other experimental structures to fill in the blanks in the future." 

The studio is also collaborating with other architects on experimenting with new shapes, materials and organizational ideas – all surrounding the idea of off-the-ground structures.

The units take advantage of the height on many aspects like passive cooling, passive shading through adjacent trees, being away from mosquito shrub and simply enjoying another vantage point was only a few of the design drivers shaping this place. 

Alexis Dornier's office invites other studios to chip in their ideas in form of a small competition that it will launch soon. For further information, you can visit Lift Bali's Instagram page and website.  

Floor plan

First floor plan

East elevation

First floor plan

Second floor plan

Roof plan-1

Roof plan-2

Section

Section

Section

Section

Section

North elevation

Alexis Dornier recently completed a cross-shaped house elevated on stilts in Bali, Indonesia. House Carbon in Bali is also another key project of the architect.

All images © kiearch

All drawings © Alexis Dornier

> via Alexis Dornier