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You can grow a house in four years.
And in order to get there,
in order to grow it, you need sunlight,
rainwater, and not much else.
A house like Sharma Springs, on the day it was finished,
five years before that...
none of the bamboo in it existed.
And so, if you can build castlesout of grass,
what else can you do?
And that's...
- Let's take him. Let's take him.-Pedro wants some mangoes.
Yes, he does. Come on.
When Clifford tasted the thermometer, he thought it was...
-Candy.-But, ugh, it tasted like...
-Medicine. Medicine.-Medicine.
If you erase the word "house" from your mind,
and going away from a senseof four posts and a roof,
just as the basicsof how to protect yourself...
if you approach it from a clean slate...
Hello.
...it's really funto just think about, like,
what kind of next layer of self...
what kind of shelterdoes nature want for us.
And so, Sharma Springs to me it reallyrepresents what a home should be.
It's one of about 20 bamboo homesthat I've designed
for people in Bali and around the world.
It really deliverson the general notion
of the building being a small fragmentof the world of your dreams.
It's a house giving form to the futurethat we would like to live in.
What I see happen for peoplewhen they walk through Sharma Springs
is this sense of opening up.
They're like, "Wow, I didn't think this was possible."
Because right now, bamboo, it's not taken seriously.
But I think we're starting to change that.
Bamboo is a kind of relativelylittle-used material.
In the Western worldit's kind of not on people's radars.
To be fair, until five years ago,
I didn't know any more about bamboo thanthe bamboo I had in my garden at home.
In Indonesia it's seen as poorand not a 21st century material.
Does this pole get in the way of that?
As an Indonesian I see a basicwhat we can do with bamboo,
that it cannot be made beautiful
because our traditional use of bamboois just simple things
like house fences, something like that.
But Elora sees things differently.
- Yeah. The beautiful shape.-The perfect-- Yes.
It has to be enforced at the site.
Really, beyond my imagination.
Every pole and piece of timberin Sharma Springs
is four, maybe five years old.
And you compare that to a housemade of wood,
where the wood took decades to growor centuries to grow.
And then you talk about a housethat's made of concrete,
then we're talking fossil fuelsthat took a millennia to develop.
So, in terms of a material resourcethere isn't anything that compares.
If there is, I want to know about it, I want to use it.
Do you think it can feel nice, with the off-- the balance of the inside?
For me it's okay, Elora, but we'll have to test it later.
Yeah, okay.
One of the things that interests me
is the fact that Elora's educationwasn't an architectural one.
And so, the kind of boundariesare not defined for her.
Nothing is beyond the conversation,
nothing is beyond possibilityas far as she's concerned.
It would be cool if the structure, the shape, the sculpture
could stay beautiful and strongno matter where you turn it.
We should think in three dimensionswithout gravity.
It's that thinking in thingsa different way
produce the kind of architecturethat she does.
See, I've just said--You've used the word "architecture",
but I kind of feel there should beanother word for what she does.
Because it doesn't fit the kind of normal, for me anyway,
what I see as the normal, kind of, rules of architecture.
It's not building thingsin that kind of rigid way that we do.
It's evolving out of the natureof the material.
She does what the bamboo wants to do.
It's not coming from her mind, it's not coming from her brain,
it's coming from her heart and soul.
It is a designer, the land, the trees...
coming together as an offering.
That's the beauty of what Elorahas learned
from the people of Baliand the spirit of Bali.
I was actually born in Toronto, Canada, where my parents are from.
But I grew up herefrom when I was five months old.
We were a pretty far-out family.
We were living on an islandwithout electricity,
without running water.
We also built things. When we needed a playground we built it.
With bamboo, as it happens.
Elora had a rice fieldout behind the house.
She would be out there in her tutuplanting rice.
She had all her Balinese ceremonies.
And she went to the temple.
So she lived in that fantasy land.
I was really, I think, soaking in a lot as a kid.
This appreciation of beauty, artistry, and of nature
that is a central partof Balinese culture.
Bali encourages the imagination.
Elora was always incredibly creativeabout everything.
At the age of fiveshe had her own artist's signature.
She already knew that's what artists did.
And she designed all her own costumesfor every event.
This was sometimes stressful...
because she knew exactly what she wantedand she was very specific.
It had to be exactly right.
She already had that sensibility, you know, her eye.
We just had to make sure we encouraged it.
So when I was around eight or nineand my parents separated...
my mom started to build her own house.
There was a spot on the landthat my mom said,
"Okay, this is where you and your brotherwill have your little house,
and so, what do you want to do?
What do you want it to look like?"
And I just drew my fantasylittle fairy mushroom house.
She drew it.
It looked amazingly like the drawingwhen we did it.
My fairy mushroom house becamethis clear example in my early childhood
that I could have an idea and thenmake it big and real and exist.
I can only assume that it gave meextra confidence to do other things...
that might actually seem crazy.
I always felt like Bali was home, and I loved my home.
I also knew that it was not my home inthe way that it's home to Balinese people.
Being a Balinese is a very specificand elaborate cultural thing.
And I'm not that.
I think very early on I recognized
that I was separate and differentand kind of a mix of cultures.
But so much of the appreciation I havefor the world
and any talent that I have really feelsso much that it came from Bali
and from getting the chanceto be raised here.
And so I feel like I got somethingout of it that I have to give back.
Like, I needed to earn my childhood here.
I had to translate it somehowand turn it into something.
And to do that, I knewthat I needed to be out in the world.
I knew I needed to be, I don't know, growing wings.
So after finishing my fine arts degree, I was really at a loss
trying to figure out what to do next.
And I knew that New York was the centerof a lot of creativity and a lot of energy
and scary, probably, but excitingand worth giving a shot.
Worth trying.
So, New York, in our early days together,
Elora was working in fashionfor Donna Karan.
And I think it was really importantfor her to be tested
in the highest forms of design.
A big moment for me was when I got a call
because Donna had decidedthat she'd had a change of heart
about the prints and patternsfor the collection
about two or three weeksbefore the runway show.
And she knew that I could paint,
and so the creative director called meand said, "Can you paint on fabric?"
And I said, "Of course."
So I went to the fabric paint store
and asked them how to paint on fabric.
I had really no ideahow good Elora really was.
All of a sudden her arms started to goand art started to fly,
and she was brilliant.
And that's what I think a true artist is, somebody who just goes for it.
It was so wonderful seeing thingsthat I'd made with my own hands
go down a runway, show up in photographs.
Be hanging in a storeand I could touch it there.
That was really empowering, being able to creatively make something
that then also existed in the world.
I immediately recognizedthe way that Donna drapes
as being like a sculpturaland emotional activity.
She was working in space, she was sculpting a form,
and it was also tied in to feeling, right?
She'd wrap a piece of fabricaround herself
and the way that fabric would falland the texture of it
would create a space...
that would make her feel a certain way
and that was very much likemaking another layer of her body.
And in designing and buildingSharma Springs
and planning how the walls should be,
I thought about Donnawrapping fabrics around her.
What shape feels goodaround the human body.
Finding a natural curvethat feels like a good flow.
It seems so obvious to methat we feel at home
in spaces that are curving.
For me Sharma Springsis about reconnecting
to natural forms and materials.
There are organic shapes all around us.
So there's no place for squaresor rectangles or right angles.
And so a question that comes up so much
when we're trying to find the right curveor the right shape
or the right level within a buildingis "What would nature do?"
The Balinese culture has a very clearunderstanding and history
of how bamboo can be used.
We are bamboo people.
From birth, when they cut your umbilical cord,
this is cut with a piece of bamboothat is sharpened.
And when you die, they puta yellow bamboo in your left hand
so that when you go into the afterlifeyou can plant a bamboo
and that will give you prosperity.
So there's a lot of cultural identityand understanding of bamboo,
but bamboo still has many stigmas on it.
As a poor man's timber, as a temporary timber,
as something that would get eatenby the bugs, attacked by fungus,
wouldn't last long outsidebecause of UV, water, et cetera.
So that's why we are working hardto change the mind-set.
We talk to farmers in different areas,
and we encourage them to grow bambooin their yards, in their land.
Because bamboo can grow so quick, it become the answer for the environment
but also the people,
and then we have business with them.
And they witness what we can dowith bamboo.
If you don't harvest it right,
and if you don't do the treatment right,
it will not last long.
That's what common people do.
But with well-treated bamboo,
if you can design it right, construct it right...
it will last very long time.
All of this is reallya very important foundation
to any future bamboo industry.
But because bamboo is seenas the poor man's timber,
if we want to actualize bambooas a sustainable timber of the future
in a major way...
we need to create beautiful examplesof how bamboo can be utilized...
to inspire the future use of bamboo.
We need to inspire.
If you're gonna make something, it's part of a story.
It's part of a much longer story
that started before you came in contactwith the materials,
and will continue long after.
And at some point in New York, as someone who makes things,
I recognized the significanceof the continuum of that.
She knew that the workshe was doing in fashion
was getting attention, that it was on big magazines.
And she knew that it wasthe impressive thing,
the right thing as far as whatsomebody in that position would want.
But it didn't really resonate with heras well as it might have.
I really came to understandthe seasonality of fashion
and what that seasonality results in, which is this sort of disposability.
If a shirt just feels rightfor that season,
and then it's done with.
It stuck inside me, and I think it bugged me a lot:
The fact that what you're doingends up having a bad ripple effect.
And so I had no idea what to do.
I was searching.
But I knew that it wasn't gonna be okayto just run away from something,
that I needed to have somethingto run towards.
And what I foundturned out to be back home.
My dad and stepmom had founded a schoolfor kids from all over the world,
Green School,
and taken the stand to build itentirely out of bamboo.
It was an incredibly bold stand to take.
Something that had never been done before.
The word got out that, "They're doing magic up there."
Her father, John, pulled together allthe right people from all around the world
and said, "Let's make this happen."
In a way, it was exactly what I was searching for.
It was this sense of doing something good.
There was an opportunity to work with himand in the team that had built the school,
to try out making different structures.
That was exciting for her, that lit her up a little bit.
You live in a magic land.
Yeah, it is, isn't it?
You could be in New York.
Listening to the sirens.
The team that came togetherto build Green School,
they were just going for it.
It wasn't a formalized company.
And then the school opened, and then what?
The whole teamneeded something to do next.
So they were looking for workand trying to connect all the dots.
I think the month that I got back to Bali,
they were breaking groundon the first house.
And of the people involvedin managing the team at that time,
I'm the only one who showed upat that ceremony,
which I should have takenas a warning sign.
Because pretty soon, the entire team and the entire endeavor
was pretty much my responsibility.
Pending whether it's a basket, based on the client.
I really felt a lot of the timelike if I didn't get out of bed
and do the next thing, this wouldn't be able to continue.
I didn't have the hand skills. I didn't have any skills.
But Elora has the magic in her hands, and she has the brain,
and she has the abilityto pick up ideas
that are falling from very high.
As it became her company,
it fell on her to look after everything, from HR to finance to everything.
And see how it feels.
She's often stretched impossibly.
I don't know what the measurement is, but we have to figure it out based on...
Did I draw it somewhere? The water reflection.
I didn't draw it. I didn't draw it.
I was equipped to designin the creative side of it,
but in terms of the whole business of it,
I was so often feelinglike I was out of my depth.
Questioning myself, and regretting beinginvolved in any of this to begin with.
...a whole other cascade of problems, we have to consider that.
Everything has been quite tenuousand a struggle.
But no matter the stressand strain and weight,
it couldn't ever quite comparewith the idea of sending 120 people home.
Taking that creative, dynamic, chaotic process
of anything that's pioneering, it tests your character.
Can you stick with your vision
in the realities of business, in the realities of the world,
where everyone tells youit's not possible
and that you have to fit into a square,
and you're just anything but square?
And so you try.
And I thinkElora has really been persistent
to really push a company forward in Ibuku.
While building Sharma Springs, I was slogging through the process
because in the creative side of things,
the whole interior spacewas pretty much unknown.
And it was a really interesting challengeto flesh it out.
In order to turn these gorgeous shellswith beautiful structural techniques
into a home,
in order to keep the promiseof that beautiful form...
everything else insidehas to live up to it somehow.
We had to reinvent everything.
Like, the fridge would bug everyonewalking into the house.
How do you hide that fridge?
And what we found pretty quickly was
that we couldn't really go buydoorknobs and light switches...
or even furniture.
We had to make everything.
Let's do this one first.
Which one? This one?
This one is cool, the new model.
Are you happy?
-Yes, I am.-Oh, yeah?
Have you already ordered the rope?
In our team, we're really grappling with
how to best express and best use bamboo,
both as its natural intact beautiful form
and not mess with it too much.
And then also just totally slice it apartand chop it apart in different ways
and find the propertiesthat can come out of that.
We gotta just followhow many spaces we get
and whatever size they are.
So much of what we do is just playful.
And what do you think? The shape square, or angled square?
Yesterday, like this...
Yes, like this. So, it's three lines: one, two, and three. Here, here, and here.
It's just fun to think, okay, there's probably a good reason
why they've always made a chair like that, or a door like that.
There's probably a good reasonwhy that's usually the way it is.
But what if it wasn't?
What else would it be?
It's an ongoing processof just trying to reinvent the universe
in a way that didn't exist before.
I like to nickname Eloraas a bamboo fundamentalist.
Because every single part of the buildingis made out of bamboo,
even the things that are maybe notthe most obvious to make out of bamboo.
Each piece of bamboo is unique.
It's the uniqueness that adds the magic.
For example, the root of one species of bamboo curves,
and it becomesthis really cool handle shape
that we used for several of the doors.
For the headboard of the master bed,
we simply sliceda big beautiful pole of bamboo
and the hollows insideare the perfect spot to put your glasses
or your earrings.
In Balinese, they call it "taksu."
"Taksu" means, like, "the life."
And if you can make the bambooshow its "taksu,"
then people will see the beauty of it.
They can see life.
Sharma Springs has this combinationof the beauty of the material
put together in a waythat has a softness to it,
which actually makes it work as a home.
This house has a feel to ityou gravitate towards.
You just connect with it.
By working with bambooin all of these different ways,
Elora Hardy has taken the buildingof bamboo structures to another level
and brought to the world the possibilityof what you can achieve with bamboo.
...to be good and a good example,
and to inspire many others, not just to be better,
but also to be better for the Earthand the world.
For me, the chance to designand build Sharma Springs
was just this wellspring of opportunity
to share what I felt Bali gave me.
It's somewhere between giving back to Baliand giving Bali to everyone in the world.
After designing Sharma Springs,
the Ibuku team and Elorahave now inspired many people.
- So if that curls this way, it's nice.-Yeah.
And this can curl this way.
And make this the work space,
and then put a spiral staircase here.
Through the beauty of her design,
Elora has made people feel
like bamboo is incredible.
At my company, as engineers, we've begun talking to Elora
about the future of bamboo.
And I recently was approachedby a big developer in London
who has asked usto look at a tower in London
with the possibility of using bambooas part of the structure for it.
Five years ago, that would never have happened.
So there is an enormous changein the attitude towards it
and the things you can do with it.
I used to think, "Bamboo is simple."
But after seeing Sharma Springsand working with Elora,
it really changed my perception.
I would say thatl'm kind of falling in love with bamboo.
I like those middle parts. This one, Papa.
Which one? Ah, here. Doesn't it look nice, the interlocking bamboo?
That's why sometimes I take my sons
to our projects so that they can seethe beauty of the bamboo.
This is, "This could be your future someday."
The future of Bali and Indonesia, and also the world, I think.
Did you see our new sink?
Did you see that beautiful new sink?
I think that becoming a motherbrings to light the preciousness of time.
So much more is at stake.
So, earlier this year, we decidedto add an extension onto our home.
It's a one-story black bamboo space.
And I just hope that if Nayancan come inside of our home
and feel like it's partof the natural world...
What do you think?
...that there's no separationbetween him and nature...
then I've taught him that the world is...
that the world is something he can impact.
When he has ideas about things, that he could believe it was possible.
Because if you can growa clump of bamboo in five years
and build a house that sparkssomething wild in the imagination...
...and makes you feel differentlyabout the world,
then what else is possible?
A house like Sharma Springsis about recognizing
that there are different waysof looking at a situation
to find a different paththrough the forest.
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