The Order is a planned hotel and residences complex by Arch(e)type in the Jimbaran hills of south Bali, Indonesia, organized around a ceremonial axis derived from the spatial logic of the Balinese candi bentar. The approximately 20,000 m2 development combines hotel rooms, residences, villas, wellness areas, dining, workspaces, and shared amenities within a sequence of courtyards shaped by shade, planting, threshold, and gradual transitions from public to private space.
The Order Technical Information
- ArchitectsArch(e)type
- LocationJimbaran Hills, South Bali, Indonesia
- Gross Area20,000 m2 | 215,278 Sq. Ft.
- Project Years2026 – 2029
- Photographs© Arch(e)type
Bali means working with a different spatial culture and a different climate. Here the architecture itself has to provide shade, cooling and the ritual of moving from public to private. We studied the logic of Balinese temple architecture, the processions and the repetition of a motif at different scales, and translated it into the language of a contemporary resort without quoting it directly.
– Daria Belyakova
Sequence, Threshold, and the Balinese Split Gate
The Order takes the candi bentar as a spatial reference rather than as an applied image. In Balinese temple architecture, the split gate produces a sequence of compression, framing, and release: the body passes through a narrowed opening before entering a courtyard. Arch(e)type extends this principle into the masterplan, using a linear ceremonial axis to organize arrival, movement, and the progressive withdrawal from public areas into quieter residential zones.
This axial organization gives the complex a clear legibility despite its mixed program and substantial footprint. Hotel rooms, residences, villas, restaurants, wellness spaces, and work areas are distributed along a chain of courtyards, each marking a shift in privacy and atmosphere. The logic is processional, but not strictly monumental; it depends on repeated thresholds, shaded passages, and framed views rather than a single dominant gesture.
The split-gate idea is also translated across scales. At the scale of massing, two mirrored wings form a vertical cleft that recalls the divided temple gate. At the scale of the facade, paired brick piers and narrow planted slots repeat the same motif in more intimate terms. This scaling down is critical to the project, as it prevents the cultural reference from remaining only symbolic and allows it to participate in circulation, shade, privacy, and orientation.
Courtyards as Climatic and Social Infrastructure
The courtyards operate as the main spatial and environmental armature of the resort. They are not residual voids between accommodation blocks, but organizing rooms that regulate movement and climate. Their sequence helps visitors navigate a dense program through spatial memory: arrival court, dining court, wellness basin, pool court, and residential transitions. Each court establishes a different relation between built edge, canopy, water, and ground level.
The first courtyard functions as an open urban room where reception, lounges, restaurants, and shaded terraces overlap. Further along the axis, the ground drops into a lower wellness courtyard structured around water, the spa, and yoga spaces. The pool courtyard reinforces the cloister-like arrangement of the five- and six-story wings, where stacked accommodation is balanced by open-air circulation, landscape depth, and shaded communal territory.
Climatically, the courtyard strategy is suited to Bali’s heat, humidity, and seasonal rainfall. Dense planting, water surfaces, deep overhangs, and cross-ventilated edges support cooler microclimates while reducing dependence on enclosed, mechanically conditioned space. The success of this approach will depend on the eventual maturity of the landscape and the detailing of drainage, airflow, and maintenance, since the visual character of the design relies heavily on vegetation as an architectural layer.
Facade Depth, Material Weight, and Tropical Performance
The facades are defined by depth rather than flat composition. Volumetric offsets create terraces, loggias, planted balconies, and shaded outdoor rooms that protect glazing from direct sun and glare. These recessed zones also keep exterior circulation usable during rain, a necessary consideration in a tropical resort where the threshold between inside and outside is expected to remain active throughout the day.
Balinese brick gives the elevations a tactile and structural weight, especially in the waisted piers that recur throughout the project. Their chevron and stacked-bond coursing turns the brickwork into a motif with spatial consequence, not merely a cladding pattern. Indonesian teak appears in screens, soffits, roof structures, and interior elements, establishing continuity between envelope and inhabitable surface. Together, brick and timber produce a material language that is heavy enough to anchor the complex, yet porous enough to support shade and ventilation.
The primary structure is a reinforced concrete frame designed for seismic conditions, while the environmental performance is carried by the secondary architectural layers: loggias, screens, planted troughs, balustrades, and roof overhangs. This distinction is significant. The building’s passive behavior is not hidden in technical systems alone, but expressed in section, facade thickness, and the occupation of shaded intermediate space. Rooftop solar and courtyard microclimates supplement this strategy, although their effectiveness will depend on detailed implementation rather than representation.
Interior Continuity and the Resort as a Spatial System
The public interiors continue the exterior language through axial rooms, timber screens, dense stone surfaces, and repeated ritual elements. In the lobby, a bronze gong placed on axis behind the reception desk turns arrival into a controlled spatial event, framed by a coffered timber ceiling, stone walls, and filtered views toward planting. The gong reappears in the yoga studio, where it shifts from reception marker to meditative object, linking hospitality and wellness through a repeated interior figure.
The program suggests a resort planned as a spatial system rather than as a collection of isolated amenities. Restaurants, spa, gym, coworking areas, retail, lounge, play spaces, and leisure rooms are treated as parts of a continuous daily cycle. This approach reflects changing patterns of travel and residence, where work, retreat, social life, and domestic routines often overlap. Architecturally, the challenge is to avoid programmatic congestion; the courtyard sequence and repeated thresholds are the tools used to preserve hierarchy within this mixed field.
Rooms, residences, and villas emphasize the transition between interior enclosure and tropical landscape. Sliding teak-framed doors, shaded glazing, private terraces, plunge pools, planted buffers, and framed views extend the living areas outward without dissolving their privacy. Interior palettes vary from dark plaster and terracotta tile in hotel rooms to travertine, onyx, walnut, and bronze-toned surfaces in larger residences. Across these spaces, the strongest architectural moments occur at thresholds, where shadow, material depth, and landscape meet the domestic scale.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Landscape designers: Arch(e)type
- Client: Landmark Development
- Other contributors: Arch(e)type led architecture, interiors, masterplan, and branding.
